The Arcana Cabana
by Ergott
Summary: "Guidance will only get you halfway, Balthazar. You must command your apprentice—gain their respect and loyalty by any means necessary. The Prime Merlinian must bow to you completely before they can hope to inherit my powers." B/D Slash, AU.
1. Chapter 1

**The Arcana Cabana**

**Summary:** Dave didn't discover the Grimhold as a child; Horvath was never released. But Balthazar Blake, through an unlucky display of Dave's lack of coordination, still ends up trapped in the urn for ten years. Morgana and the others can wait—when the sorcerer is finally free of the urn, he finds himself focused on only one thing: bringing his apprentice to heel.

**Rating:** M.

**Notes:** Yes, this is Balthazar/Dave slash. And, as you probably guessed from the summary above, it is an AU.

* * *

Chapter One

The boy was the Prime Merlinian. Balthazar wasn't sure how he knew—he hadn't had enough time to even show the boy Merlin's ring—but he felt it in a way that he never had with any of the other candidates. He had traveled the world through more lands and eras than most people could contemplate, he had been in the presence of some of the greatest philosophers and magicians in the history of man, and yet he'd felt something from that boy that he'd never felt before. Beneath the earnest innocence, awkwardness and, under the circumstances, panic, the boy possessed a surprising strength—the strength needed to wield Merlin's powers and defeat Morgana.

There was only one problem with Balthazar's discovery: he could do nothing about it.

He'd been behind the boy when a young elbow had flailed out and knocked over the Emperor's Urn. In that slow second, as Balthazar watched the Urn's lid fall open, he'd realized several things: first, he was in the presence of the Prime Merlinian; second, the boy was hopelessly uncoordinated; and third, there was no time to inform the boy of his destiny. Blackness had enveloped him, as swift and sure as any punishment—he was trapped inside the Urn. The greatest sorcerer the world had ever known would have to go untaught and unaware for another ten years. He didn't even know the boy's name, but Balthazar did know one thing for sure: whether it was ten years or a hundred, he would find the boy again; his apprentice would not escape.

* * *

Dave Stutler considered himself average in most respects. He was neither beautiful nor ugly, tall nor short, blessed nor cursed. At just under six feet, he was thin without being sickly, pale with brown hair and eyes, hopelessly out of fashion, and in a near constant state of jittery nervousness around people he didn't know. The only things he could lay extraordinary claims to were a keen insight for physics and a pleasant, if awkward, childhood.

And, of course, Becky: his one great love. Never mind that he had fallen for her at an age when most boys still thought girls had cooties; Dave had loved Becky as much as he'd been capable of at nine years old. Which, looking back, hadn't been a heck of a lot. They had held hands and snuck forbidden kisses when teachers weren't looking and, for a while, it was heaven. But by the time middle school rolled around, their interests had drifted, the kisses stopped seeming worth the hassle, and they eventually grew apart. By high school, they weren't even in the same school district anymore, and it hadn't been until just a year before, in the midst of college, that they'd gotten back in touch.

Becky was a great girl, as sweet now as she'd been back in elementary school, and Dave could remember why he'd loved her so much. But seeing her again dredged up strange memories, unsettling visions he'd rather forget about the day they'd started dating.

_It was the same field trip into The City that their school took every year—even more boring now that they were on their third or fourth visit. But this time there was Becky, the blonde haired imp that was darting her gaze between him and the yellow note he'd had passed down to her. The wait was killing him; at nine, he was very sensitive to rejection, and he desperately wanted to know if Becky was just his friend or his girlfriend. Suddenly, the line of students was moving—like cattle being led to gawk at the same sights they'd been shown year after year—and he could see the note, resting just out of reach. Dauntingly, the moment he went to retrieve it, a stray breeze picked the light note up and carried it off. Despite all the dangers, despite the knowledge that he could just turn to Becky and ask her what she'd checked, Dave ran after that slip of paper like it was the greatest treasure the world had ever seen._

_His madcap dash through The City ended at the _Arcana Cabana_, a store he'd never heard of before, and couldn't actually remember having ever been where it was. The store gave him shivers, like ice running up his spine, and a grating sense of more-than-meets-the-eye raked over his young mind. Inside the shop it was gloomy, dusty, and crowded. From one wall to the next, the _Arcana Cabana_ was packed with all manner of antiques and strange gizmos, leaving only enough room for a person to squeeze between roughly organized isles. But there, among the disorienting hodge-podge of the store, was his note and he quickly bent to retrieve it._

_Unfortunately, the weight of his bag tipped him over, nearly sending him sprawling to the floor. As he desperately tried to regain his balance, he bumped into a giant pot of some kind that then tipped over at the feet of the man he assumed owned the store. Dave steeled himself for anger and yelling, but the man merely look surprised—maybe even a little pleased and annoyed—before he had vanished completely, sucked within the toppled antique._

Dave had found his way back to his classmates, back to Becky, who had checked girlfriend, and had never told a single soul what he had witnessed within the _Arcana Cabana_. In truth, he'd never been able to decide if it had happened at all, or if he had merely imagined it. But if he had imagined it, then his memory of the daydream was surprisingly untouched. The shopkeeper had haunted his dreams for years, and Dave could recall exactly how he had looked: tall, with curly-graying hair that nearly fell to his shoulders, piercing blue-ish eyes, and enough stubble to almost be considered a goatee. He had stood behind Dave, looking strange and mysterious, dressed in pinstripe woolen slacks, a dark shirt, a woolen vest with a chain of keys jangling under the lapels, and an ancient-looking leather coat.

For ten years, Dave had driven himself nearly insane trying to figure out if the man had even existed at all, and why the shopkeeper's image had stayed so fresh in his mind. He'd never been able to reconcile anything, and had desperately tried to forget instead, but time had not dulled his memories at all. When he least suspected it, when he was at his weakest or most vulnerable, the shopkeeper surfaced from the back of his mind to taunt him.

"You seem distracted," a sweet voice said from beside him.

Dave struggled to bring himself back to the present, to pull his mind out of the shadows of the past. He was in one of the NYU libraries with Becky, trying to help her understand his much beloved physics. She had no talent for it and they both knew it, but their study sessions gave them time to reconnect. "Sorry," he replied, "my mind just drifts sometimes."

Becky smiled. "If I were half as smart as you are, I'd probably drift a little too."

He was about to assure her that she was a very bright woman, that physics was just a hard subject for a lot of people to understand, when the hair at the back of his neck stood on end. Something seared across his nerves, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard, and he suddenly felt as though he were being watched. Slowly, Dave raised his eyes and looked around, dreading what he would find.

But there was no one around, aside from Becky and a few late-night studiers. The stacks of the library were quiet and motionless; there was nothing threatening lurking behind their shelved books.

And yet his unease persisted.

* * *

For a man who had lived over a thousand years, Balthazar had to admit that the past ten had seemed slower than any he'd ever witnessed. Largely, that was due to the fact that he was stuck inside the preternatural blackness of the Emperor's Urn, but a part of it was due to the fact that he had finally found the boy that would be his apprentice. Of course, he wouldn't be a boy anymore by the time Balthazar got out; after ten years, the child he'd seen would be closer to a man by now. That complicated matters—a child was easy to lead and quick to follow instructions, whereas an adult would be obstinate and insubordinate—but the Prime Merlinian had to be taught sorcery, or the world would forever be in danger of Morgana's power.

He felt something shift in the darkness, felt the subtle easing of the suffocating magic holding him in place. His ten years were just about up; his freedom was almost at hand. It was nearly time to claim his apprentice.

A gust of air rushed past him, whipping his hair in all direction, and when it finally died down and he was able to open his eyes, he found himself standing within the familiar surroundings of the _Arcana Cabana_. The shop was a neat piece of magic: a small strip of building that never stayed in any part of the city for too long, meaning he never had to pay rent, he couldn't be traced, and if he happened to disappear for a while his possessions would be safe from the hands of others. He took a moment to breathe in the sweet air of his home, then set about in a flurry of action, stuffing his pockets with small contraptions and grabbing Merlin's ring before bolting out the door.

He would savor his freedom later, when he knew he had the Prime Merlinian in hand.

* * *

Dave aborted his program in mid-run and listened to his Tesla coils slowly power-down. He'd come to his subterranean lab to blow off some steam, to reorient himself. More than anywhere else in the world, he felt at home here among his coils and advanced technologies, but tonight it didn't seem to be helping. His study session with Becky had slowly gone downhill as he had become more and more aggravated by the strange feeling that was plaguing him; eventually the two had simply agreed to call it a night, and that they would meet again later. He had hoped that coming to work on his coils would have calmed him down somewhat, but each passing moment only found him edgier, until he felt like he was going to jump out of his skin.

"What is wrong with me?" he wondered aloud, wearily running a hand over his face.

"You're hypertensive to shifts in your perceived reality," a voice answered from above him.

Dave's head snapped up, and he watched in what felt like slow motion as the shopkeeper from his memories crossed the short catwalk and descended the stairs into his lab. The moment was so surreal, in fact, that he had to wonder if this was an hallucinatory precursor to the breakdown he was obviously heading for. "This isn't happening," he muttered to himself, backing out of his safety cage. "It's not," he added for good measure, pinching his own arm as hard as he could.

"And here I thought you'd be _less_ of a child," the man laughed softly. "Calm yourself, Dave."

"What," Dave stammered. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"My name is Balthazar Blake," he replied with a steely look in his eyes. "Preemptively, I'd like to mention that you're not dreaming." He drew closer, until he was within an arm's reach of the younger man. "And I know you name, Dave Stutler, because your roommate is the most talkative person I've ever met."

_I am going to kill Bennett_, Dave thought to himself. Assuming that the man in front of him was actually there, he was coming off kind of stalkerish—and that was definitely outside of Dave's comfort zone. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave," he said as levelly as he could.

'Balthazar' nodded his head comfortingly. "I need you to do something for me first," he stalled, fishing a strange-looking band of silver out of his pocket. "If you could just look at this for a second, and give me your opinion," he trailed off, holding the object out.

It belatedly occurred to Dave that the man was possibly not a figment of his imagination, but someone that his professor had directed to Dave for help; the fact that he bore a wicked resemblance to the shopkeeper was just a coincidence. "Yeah, of course," he stammered. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long night."

"I probably should have waited until a more decent time," Balthazar agreed. His entire manner was relaxed and friendly, but there was something hungry lurking in his eyes.

Dave shook off the incongruent feelings he was getting from the man and reached for the band. It was cool to the touch and made of a highly polished metal, no longer than his land or thicker than his thumbnail. He marveled at it for a moment, taking all the details in—it was etched with a series of strange symbols and he couldn't quite tell what it was made of. But, as interesting as it was, he couldn't help but wonder why it had been directed to him; this wasn't exactly his area of expertise. Just as he thought that, the band heated, lengthened, and began to move, slithering around his hand until it spiraled up his forearm, and locked around his wrist and elbow.

His gaze darted from the thing on his arm to the smug man standing opposite him. He was pretty sure he made some kind of noise, although what it was he genuinely could not tell, before he stumbled back from the older man. "What's going on?" he asked, his tone pinched and a little hysteric.

"You, Dave Stutler," Balthazar replied, eating up the distance between them once more, "are my apprentice."

* * *

A/N: This movie really got under my skin, in a good way. I don't think this story will be very long, but it should be a few chapters at least.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Sorcerer's Apprentice, nor am I making any money off this story.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Balthazar calmly watched the younger man lose his mind. Dave started babbling incomprehensively, his fingers prying at the metal gripping his arm as he stumbled drunkenly around the stone room.

The Locking Ring had been given to him by a Viking warlord as thanks for raising his sinking ship. Balthazar had never found it particularly useful—it was intended to keep unwilling brides from running away—but he had kept it out of respect for the Norseman. He was glad he had; he knew life with Dave was going to be an uphill battle—it would take more time than he was strictly willing to give to convince the younger man to begin his training—and he knew he would need as many advantages over the situation as he could get.

"Of all the times _not_ to have bolt cutters in the lab," Dave groaned in frustration. He quickly turned to face Balthazar and threateningly raised the screwdriver he'd been trying to wedge under the Ring. "I don't know what's going on, Mr. Blake, but I suggest you leave before I call the police."

"Ten years ago, you walked into my store," Balthazar said, ignoring the younger man's attempt at intimidation. "It was not a coincidence that we crossed paths; I was meant to find you."

"Could you dial back the creepiness just a little?" Dave snapped, clearly uncomfortable.

And why wouldn't he be? When Balthazar thought about it objectively, he knew that the untrained sorcerer had no idea what was going on. He didn't want to take the time to explain everything, but for Dave's peace of mind it would appear that they would have to have some kind of talk. "What happened in that store, Dave? What do you remember?"

The boy paled a little and his pupils dilated. "Memory is a tricky thing," he replied, his tone evasive. "The further removed you are from the event, the more likely your brain is to make up random details to fill in the gaps in you memory."

"You knocked over an urn," Balthazar supplied.

Dave began fiddling with the Locking Ring again. "Completely by accident—I remember that part, it's what happened afterward that I'm not too clear on."

Balthazar shook his head, already knowing that Dave would do anything to avoid admitting he'd seen something out of the ordinary. "I was trapped in that urn for ten years, boy, and you saw it happen."

"That's not possible," the younger man denied immediately.

"But you saw it, nonetheless," the sorcerer pushed. "How would _I_ know what you witnessed if it hadn't actually happened?"

Dave rubbed at his eyes wearily. "Who are you?" he asked again. "What is all this about?"

"My name is Balthazar Blake; I'm one of three former apprentices to the sorcerer known as Merlin, and it was his dying wish that I find and train the person who would be destined to inherit his power." He took a slow breath as he tried to compress the complex details and expansive timeline that had brought him to where he was. "That person is you, Dave Stutler; I've spent a thousand years searching for _you_. And I intend to honor Merlin's request—whether you believe in magic or not, whether you are willing or not, you are my apprentice."

"Assuming I believe any of this, which I don't, then what is this?" Dave asked, plucking uselessly at the length of metal spiraled around his forearm.

"That," Balthazar replied, moving close enough to run a finger up the polished band, "is the Locking Ring; it's meant to keep you from getting too far away." He smiled darkly. "Reluctant bride or reluctant apprentice—what's really the difference?"

"They both end in a restraining order, so far as I can tell—so, none, really," the younger man replied sarcastically. "Look, you are either a deeply disturbed man, or I am having a mental breakdown; either way, I don't intend to humor you so, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave now." He backed away slowly until he had reached the stairs, then finally turned his back on the other man. "Show yourself out, and don't follow me."

Balthazar let the younger man leave—it wasn't like Dave could get very far without him knowing—and wondered what his next step should be. How was he supposed to proceed with the younger man? It was one thing to know what he was supposed to do, but it was quite another to figure out _how_ to do it. After a few minutes Balthazar left the lab, making sure it was locked securely behind him. Wandering the dark streets, he let his mind drift back in time, to a conversation he'd once had with Merlin.

"Guidance will only get you halfway, Balthazar," Merlin had said levelly. "You must command your apprentice—gain their respect and loyalty by any means necessary." He had looked so much older in that moment than Balthazar had ever seen him—world-weary and ready for peace. "The Prime Merlinian must bow to you completely before they can hope to inherit my powers."

The advice did little for Balthazar at the moment—he knew he had to be Dave's Master, but short of kidnap and mild mind-control, there was no way to get the younger man to begin practicing magic without the boy's consent. And he didn't want to proceed without Dave's consent; the situation was dire and it was imperative that Dave come into his own as a sorcerer, but it had to be at least somewhat willingly.

* * *

Dave burst into his apartment like he'd been shot from a cannon, immediately turned around to snap shut all the locks on the door, and stared out the peephole in the single most intense moment of paranoia he had ever experienced.

"Hounds of hell chasing you?" Bennett asked from behind him.

Dave jumped at his roommate's voice, and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart as he turned to face his friend. "Bennett, I have two questions for you, possibly three depending on your answers." He held out his arm, held out the strange metal that was clinging to him so unforgivably. "Do you see this?" He hated asking the question, but at the moment he wasn't too trusting of his own mental state—if he was imagining the thing on his arm, then he had probably imagined the man, too.

Bennett gave him a considering look. "That's a radical new take on the idea of arm-candy, although I think you missed the point entirely. Where did you get that?"

Dave ignored his question. "Did someone come here about an hour ago, looking for me?"

"Yeah," Bennett nodded. "Did he give you that?"

"Unfortunately." Dave sank to the floor.

"What was the third question, then?" his roommate asked after an uncomfortable silence.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dave replied, looking up. "Some guy you've never met comes to the apartment and you send him right to me?"

Bennett frowned. "You mean you didn't know him? He had your name and everything. He already knew where your lab was, he just wanted to know if you were there—he had all the information—"

"That you could find if you hacked into one of the student databanks at NYU," Dave interrupted with realization.

"Do you think he's stalking you?" his friend asked with a concerned frown.

Dave shook his head—the illogic of everything that had happened that night was overwhelming. "I don't know who he is, or how he even found me." Bennett's words had struck a disturbing chord though, and he had a feeling that he definitely hadn't seen the last of Balthazar Blake. "But those are problems I can contemplate later, for now just help me get this thing off my arm."

Bennett stepped back and looked at the object for a moment. "Your man-jewelry is on top of your shirt and your hoodie—if you can get both of those off, you might be able to slide this contraption over your wrist. Failing that, we can always just grease you up and yank on it."

"That couldn't have sounded worse if you'd tried," Dave grumbled, already working on how to get his hoodie and shirt off.

In the end, they resorted to tugging, scissors, butter, and cooking oil, but the Locking Ring refused to budge. It was the eeriest thing because, just as Bennett had said, getting Dave's clothes out of the way had given him enough clearance to get the armband off, but the moment he had tried to, it had seemed to shrink slightly—just enough to make removing it impossible. By two in the morning, they were both tired and frustrated enough to call it quits.

Going to bed didn't bring Dave any peace of mind though. For ten years he had denied and tried to forget an event that hadn't seemed possible, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He didn't know what was going on, but it brought forth a word he didn't want to acknowledge: magic. The scientist in him scoffed at the idea, but it made some amount of sense. How else could a man be trapped in an urn for ten years? How else could the thing on his arm be explained? He didn't know or trust Balthazar Blake, but he had a feeling that the strange man was the only one who could give Dave the answers to his questions.

As he fell asleep that night, the young physicist was left with the feeling that his life was about to change more than he had ever imagined possible—and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with that thought.

_

* * *

He was at the Arcana Cabana again, and ten years hadn't changed it in the least. At twenty years old, he found it even more difficult to navigate, now that he was bigger. The clutter of centuries seemed to choke the store, filling it from wall to wall with more antiques than could be found at a flea market. _

_And there, among the chaos, Balthazar stood out like a lone island, sitting behind the showcase counter as he read a newspaper. "What are you doing here, Dave?" he asked, never looking up from his paper._

"_That's what I'd like to know," Dave replied, cautiously approaching the counter._

_Balthazar laughed as he turned the page of his paper. "It's you're dream, Mr. Stutler, not mine. Although," he finally looked up from his reading, glancing over the younger man for a moment before turning back to the news, "'dream' probably isn't the right word for it. It would appear that you're having an out of body experience."_

_Dave winced. Theoretically, it was possible—but anything was possible, theoretically. There was so much about the vast reaches of the human mind and the world that surrounded it that simply was not understood yet. It seemed that he had started treading a fine line between magic and science before he'd fallen asleep, and his dream had decided to continue the voyage. "You say that like it's an everyday occurrence," he finally replied._

"_For some people, it is," Balthazar shrugged._

_Dave focused on breathing in the uncomfortable silence that followed—an admittedly strange task for someone who was dreaming—but it did nothing to calm him. "You have been in my life for less than eight hours," he exploded, "and you're already driving me insane! I just want things to go back to normal."_

_Balthazar lowered the paper and fixed the younger man with a steely gaze. "And what is normal, Dave?" he asked, raising an eyebrow._

"_Great, now even my dreams are trying to psychoanalyze me," the boy muttered to himself. "Normal," he said, slightly louder, "is not being bombarded by so many impossible things; normal is when I don't have to question my sanity."_

"_Genius and lunacy often look very much the same," the older man replied. "If you're not questioning your sanity, then you aren't pushing your own limits, you aren't testing yourself or changing the world. You know, to most people," he added pointedly, "what you do with your Tesla coils is insane—but for you, that's normal. Why?"_

"_Is there a point in here somewhere?" Dave asked in exasperation. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he didn't like it._

"_Normal is a state of mind, not a state of being," Balthazar answered. "And that state of mind should constantly be adapting to expand your views of the universe. You don't believe a single thing I say, and yet you're handling the reality of an out of body experience fairly well—because you've adapted."_

"_Because I know I'm dreaming," Dave corrected._

"_Are you?" Balthazar countered. "There's only one way to know for sure—meet me at Central Park, tomorrow at noon."_

_Dave hesitated, though he wasn't sure why. What did it matter if he set up a meeting within a dream? It wasn't like he had to keep any promises to his own imagination._

_The older man saw his wariness. "You're a scientist, Dave," he reminded. "You can't dismiss anything without reasonable proof to the contrary. If you go to that park, and I'm not there, then you were obviously dreaming, but if I am there…" he trailed off, leaving the possibilities unexplored. "What do you have to lose? I should think your curiosity would eat you alive if you let this opportunity pass you by."_

* * *

Dave didn't mean to go—he certainly hadn't intended to—but he still found himself in Central Park around noon. Never mind that he knew it was foolish, that he had other obligations like classes to see to; some part of him knew he'd regret it if he never went to confirm that he'd just had an extraordinarily active REM cycle.

"I knew your curiosity would win you over."

He slowly turned to face whoever had spoken, but he recognized that voice and his heart was already sinking because of it.

Balthazar was sitting on a bench just behind him, reading a newspaper, as he had in the 'dream'. He was leaning forward, his hair obscuring his expression a little, but the smile on his face was clear.

"I had a dream, and a memory from ten years ago that I can't explain—that's not solid evidence for magic," Dave began to argue, hating the smug look on the other man's face. All right, so he couldn't explain how last night's dream had actually happened, or what he had seen as a child, and he certainly couldn't explain the armband that was still clinging to him, but did that honestly make magic the only reasonable explanation? It was a radical step to take, and not one he was prepared to do lightly. For crying out loud, they had talked of Merlin yesterday; surely that warranted extra amounts of skepticism!

"Not if you were presenting this to someone else, no." Balthazar put his newspaper down. "But for yourself, Dave? It's more than enough, because it's personal. You know what I'm saying is true—it makes sense and it feels right." He held up a hand before the younger man could interrupt. "It's natural to resist change, and I know I'm asking for a lot of faith on your part, but I can prove that every word I'm saying is true beyond any doubt."

"How?" Dave asked before he could stop himself. He didn't want to play into the older man's delusions, but they were hard to resist.

"Come with me, and I'll show you," Balthazar coaxed, standing.

Warning flags raised themselves in Dave's mind—it was never wise to go anywhere with someone he didn't truly know or trust, but… What if he missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime because he'd been too cautious to take a chance? If there was one thing science had taught him, it was that every now and then he just had to take a leap of faith; sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't. There was a possibility that the man standing in front of him was horrifically insane, but there was also a possibility that he was the single most unique person that Dave could ever meet.

"If I still don't believe you, even after I've seen this proof of yours, will you leave me alone?" Dave asked, fiddling with the armband hidden under his sleeve.

Balthazar smiled like a man with a secret. "If you still don't believe me," he nodded.

* * *

A/N: I would just like to mention that though I enjoyed the movie more than any other film I've seen in a long while, I've only seen it once. Typically speaking, I don't get all my facts straight until I've seen a movie two or three times (I tend to mishear characters a lot, and I miss a lot of details). Please keep that in mind while you read—I do my best for accuracy but, until I can see it again, things might be a little off. Obviously, it's not going to be _quite_ as important, since this is an AU, but don't hesitate to correct me if something is glaringly wrong—like if Balthazar starts acting too much like Ben Gates or Cameron Poe.

You know what's really eerie? Wanting to watch Con Air and The Rock, but not being able to find either of them, only to discover that they're both playing on TV all weekend. It's like the cosmos is conspiring to feed my sudden Nicholas Cage mood.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: All characters and situations from The Sorcerer's Apprentice belong to Disney.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"If I still don't believe you, even after I've seen this proof of yours, will you leave me alone?" Dave asked, fiddling with the armband hidden under his sleeve.

Balthazar smiled. He was fond of verbal contracts; he hadn't always been, but he'd learned to appreciate them as he got older. The trick was in the wording, which was why he didn't protested Dave's terms—they were laughably easy to misinterpret. "If you still don't believe me," he nodded.

Slowly, he led Dave to the _Arcana Cabana_, but his mind was elsewhere. What should he offer as proof? There were any number of devices or small parlor tricks that would do the job—Dave was a skeptic, but only so far as was logically reasonable. And yet, even knowing that the boy would believe, Balthazar still found himself wanting to do something grand, something that would fill Dave with wonder and curiosity. A plasma-ball was too commonplace, despite the fact that the younger man would find a certain amount of kinship to it, thanks to his Tesla coils—but still, it wouldn't be enough. He needed something that would help establish the order of command between them, something that would naturally set Balthazar up as the Master of the two.

An idea flashed into the chaos of his thoughts, wily and complex, but possible. It was a trick he had used dozens of times over the centuries, to help him remember why it was imperative he find and train the Prime Merlinian.

The _Arcana Cabana_ loomed at the end of the street, like the proud supernatural sentinel it was.

Dave spotted the shop, then looked around, bewildered. "This is the wrong part of town. It didn't used to be here… did it?"

"Technically, it's not anywhere," Balthazar replied. "The store exists in a dimension of its own, a dimension that can intersect this one anywhere it pleases: deep in the underbelly of a mountain, at the bottom of a lake, between two halves of a duplex—anywhere."

"How?" the younger man asked confusedly, almost angrily.

"Spatial distortion isn't that hard," Balthazar shrugged. "It's like adding some extra fabric to a coat: you make a cut where you want it to go, and then you put it there."

Dave nearly stopped walking. "Breaking the fabric of reality is not the same as sewing!"

"Why not?" the older man raised an eyebrow. "If I want the _Arcana Cabana_ between two connected stores, all I have to do is cut the dimensional space between them and insert my own store into the resulting rip. When I leave, that space is mended, as though I'd never been there at all."

"And people don't notice?" it was Dave's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Generally speaking, no," Balthazar replied, bounding up the steps of his home with more grace and agility than one would expect for a man his age. He held the door open for Dave, and continued, "The beauty of the human mind is that it goes to great lengths to convince us that our perception of reality is solid and unchanging. Most people don't believe in vanishing stores, therefore most people force themselves to forget about it, once it's gone. They can't afford to have their worlds changed—their grasp on reality is too tenuous and precious—so the expulsion of memory is pretty much a defense mechanism."

Dave walked into the store, but Balthazar caught the slight shiver that seemed to grip the younger man when he entered. "And you're not the least concerned about my reality being destroyed or altered?"

"You're not like most people," the older man answered. "In your field of study, the definition of reality is always changing. And even if you weren't a scientist," he stressed, "I still wouldn't care—you were built to handle those changes, Dave. You're hypersensitive to them; you felt it when I was released from the urn, you felt the inter-dimensional friction that it caused—that's why you were so on edge last night."

If Dave had a reply, it was lost when he noticed Balthazar fishing out an ancient-looking box from behind the counter. "What's that?" he asked instead.

"This," Balthazar opened the box, "is what has brought me across the centuries to find you, Mr. Stutler."

* * *

It took a lot of effort to ignore the fact that the shop he was standing in was exactly like the one that he had seen in his dreams. The _Arcana Cabana_ was dusty and unchanged—but on the wrong side of town. It was hard to reconcile that fact—he had remembered the shop being closer to the bay, and yet it had been a short walk, in the opposite direction, from Central Park. Still, he managed to ignore that detail. What he could not ignore, however, was the container in front of him.

From behind the dusty showcase-counter, Balthazar had produced a box—a mix of old, oiled wood and green-tinged, bronze edging. It was the sort of thing he would have expected to find in a museum, yet here it was in the hands of a madman. Balthazar opened the lid, the hinges squealing slightly in protest. The inside of the box was unlined and unfinished, as though the unprepared interior was somehow paying homage to whatever it contained.

It was a figurine—a dragon figurine. Its body was made of heavy-looking silver, not unlike the Locking Ring, and it was finely detailed with delicate etches. From tail to nose, it was probably three to four inches long, its outstretched wings were about four inches across, and it was so lovingly and realistically crafted that it almost looked _alive_. It's eyes, two round chips of emerald, caught the dim light of the store and flickered with something that could easily be mistaken for life or sentience.

Balthazar lifted it out of the box. "Every sorcerer has some object to help them focus their power—usually a ring or a pendant." He flashed Dave his own ring, then held out the dragon again. "This was Merlin's. If you are the Prime Merlinian, and you are, then this is yours."

Dave ignored the figurine, instead focusing his attention on the other man. "The Prime Merlinian?" his brow furrowed.

"Merlin was a crusader and a visionary, so much so that he created an entire sect of magic," Balthazar explained. "The Prime Merlinian is the sorcerer destined to inherit all of his power and cunning—not through virtue of having been taught by him, like I was, but genetically. It took a thousand years for nature to put together the right DNA in the perfect sequence—it took a thousand years for there to be _you_, Dave." He offered the dragon once more. "Some part of you, hidden and misdirected, was a part of Merlin, and you can't change that anymore than you can change your lineage. I'm offering you the chance to follow in the footsteps of the greatest sorcerer the world has ever know but, whether you take me up on my offer or not, that part of you that's Merlin will never go away—it will only become more apparent with time."

Dave's hand reached out for the dragon, hypnotized by the older man's words, but he caught himself before he touched the heavy silver. Balthazar was good at giving impassioned speeches, good at making his lunacy sound logical, but memories of the Locking Ring were coming back to Dave. "You almost had me," he said, then held out his imprisoned arm, "but I remember the last disaster you left me with. I'd be grateful if you took this thing off my arm, by the way."

Balthazar shook his head, ignoring the Locking Ring. "I can't give you your proof until you take the dragon, Dave; you'll need it for what's to come."

The younger man weighed his options. He could leave, it wasn't like there was anything stopping him, but Balthazar would only continue to harass him; there was always the chance that the dragon figurine was just another trick, but if he didn't take it he couldn't see the promised proof, and if he didn't see that, the older man would never leave him alone. He had choices, but only one clear solution.

Cautiously, Dave reached out, taking the dragon. At first, nothing seemed to happen then, slowly, he became aware of a rustling against his palm. Opening his hand, Dave was confronted with the sight of the suddenly animated silver dragon. It shook its tiny head, as though throwing off sleep, and then blinked up at the young man holding it. A heavy moment passed as the metallic creature regarded him—he found himself holding his breath, though he wasn't sure why—but it quickly reached some kind of decision. With a stretch and a scurry, the dragon moved from his palm to his index finger, where it wrapped itself bodily around him, folding its wings until it looked like a very large ring, not unlike Balthazar's.

Dave stared at the dragon for a moment, fighting down the urge to scream. What he'd just witnessed was nearly proof of magic, in and of itself—there was no way that figurine should have been able to move and transform as it had. Adding that evidence to the remarkably similar occurrence of the Locking Ring, and he was left with two events that pretty much needed magic to have been possible.

"Come on," Balthazar interrupted his thoughts, carrying what looked like a long length of faded curtain on a rod, "we're not done yet." He reached the far wall where there were two large hooks set about four feet apart and maybe five feet off the ground. With a flourish, he hung the curtains, fussed with their folds for a moment, then laid his hand across the top bar and closed his eyes. He stayed like that long enough to spark curiosity, then whipped back one side of the curtain and beckoned his companion. "After you," he motioned out the short door that had not been there only moments ago.

Dave felt himself begin to sweat. Conjurers could make things appear during stage shows, when everything was rigged to their advantage, but Balthazar had just made a door appear in a brick wall. It might have been a trick, but how could he have pulled it off without moving either of his hands? Dave swallowed tightly, and wearily ducked through the short doorway.

What greeted him on the other side was _not_ New York City. In point of fact, there shouldn't have even _been_ anything beyond the door. The _Arcana Cabana_ was surrounded by buildings, if there was anything behind it all it should have been an alley not a… garden. That was the best way to describe it. An acre of land stretched out, walled in by high stone walls; a paved path meandered from one end to the other, surrounded on all sides by bubbling fountains, jewel-colored flowers, and a canopy of leafy trees and creeping ivy. In the center of the garden was a courtyard, paved in dark stone and etched with strange circles.

Balthazar placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, making Dave jolt. It was no secret that he was uncomfortable around the vast majority of people, which made touching a special kind of hell for him, but the gentle pressure of Balthazar's hand made no demands of him, merely guided him toward the courtyard. When they reached their destination, and the hand was dropped, Dave was a little shocked to realize he missed its warmth.

"Stand here," the older man directed Dave to a small circle within the paving stones. In fact, it was one of twelve small circles, all set within a larger circle, like the points of a clock. Balthazar took a circle not quite opposite him and then took a deep breath. "Don't move until it's time, and if you feel yourself starting to panic, just take the ring off your finger," he said levelly. "Without the ring, you won't be able to see or experience any of what is about to happen; keep that in mind." And with that, he began to chant under his breath.

Dave was tempted to ask him what he was talking about, but the space around him suddenly felt different. It was as though the very air within the large circle had shrunk, becoming tight and heavy. For a moment, the unsettling and familiar thrill of electricity laced the air, sending a shiver up his spine. The electricity discharged with a loud crack and a bright flash, dulling his senses painfully.

When Dave finally regained control of himself, it was in the middle of a new world. The garden was gone, replaced with a night-entrenched fortress that loomed over a tiny village. Thick walls of stone towered into the sky, visible only by virtue of the hundreds of torches and small fires that dotted the structure. Dozens of people littered the ground between where Dave stood—in a ancient-looking alley just outside of the fortress—and the giant, fortified doors of the stronghold, and it was with painful clarity that he realized all those people were dead, run through with shards of glass and ice, their heads bent at unnatural angles. A wave of bile burned the back of his throat, and the only thing that kept him from revisiting his breakfast was the return of Balthazar's hand on his shoulder.

"These people are centuries dead, Dave," he said, although that was hardly soothing, and his voice was heavy with something that sounded like pity. "This is just a memory."

* * *

A/N: That wasn't as long as I was hoping for, but the next chapter should be a longer one.

Many, _many_ thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. I really appreciate it!

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Sorcerer's Apprentice belongs to Disney. Also, the _Arcana Cabana_ shares some similarities with a shop from Terry Pratchett's 'Soul Music', I believe, so credit goes to Mr. Practchett and the Diskworld Series for inspiration (as usual).


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Dave wasn't sure what to think. "A memory?" he asked, trying to push down the horror he was feeling.

Balthazar nodded. "I'm showing you the night that set both of our destinies in motion." His hand squeezed the younger man's shoulder. "This is just a projection of what I remember happening, as well as the events I was able to piece together after the fact. You cannot be harmed by what you're about to see but, by the same token, you cannot influence it, either."

Dave swallowed hard. A memory? It was little consolation. Everything around him _had_ happened at some point, meaning that the slaughtered people before him were still dead, no matter how long ago it had occurred. And while it was nice to know he couldn't be actively hurt by what he was baring witness to, it was still causing him pain—the gruesome sights before him would not be forgotten anytime soon. Hands shaking, he rubbed at his eyes, then looked back at the medieval fortress. "What is all this?" he asked tightly.

"This is Merlin's stronghold in Britain, 773 AD—the night Morgana attacked," Balthazar explained. "We don't have much time, so listen carefully. Merlin was my Master, but I wasn't his only apprentice; there was also Veronica and Maxim Horvath. Horvath chose to betray us to the very opposite of Merlin: a dark sorcerer named Morgana le Fay." He paused and looked around as though he had heard something, then quickly continued, "Veronica and I were out in the village when the attack began—we're about to ride up where you're standing, so you might want to move."

"I thought you said nothing could hurt me here," Dave countered.

"Which is true." Balthazar shrugged, "It's just that most people find it disconcerting to occupy the exact same space as the memory of a horse."

Dave managed to scramble out of the way before two mounted riders rounded the corner he'd been standing in front of. If Balthazar was to be believed, then nothing would have happened to him if he hadn't moved in time, but adrenaline still surged through his body in the face of what it thought of as danger. The adrenaline did only one thing for him—two, if you counted the fact that it made his shaking hands even worse—it gave him greater perception. Details jumped out at him, sounds and smells intensified dramatically, and he became painfully aware that the situation was weirder than he had initially given it credit for. Some remote part of him had been hoping to write off whatever Balthazar could offer as his proof of magic, but unless the older man had somehow transported them to a soundstage and had a completely identical twin, it simply wouldn't be possible.

Sitting atop one of the newly arrived horses was Balthazar, identical down to every last detail. His hair was the same graying-brown, his eyes were the same intense blue—the new Balthazar was filled with confusion and grief, but he still had laugh lines around his eyes, still had the same air of power and mischievousness. Next to him was a woman Dave didn't recognize, a dark beauty with piercing eyes and tresses of silken mahogany. Her innocent face reflected the horror Dave felt at the field of mangled bodies leading up to the fortress.

The riders dismounted and began running toward the castle on foot.

"We were already too late to save Merlin," Balthazar explained to the younger man. "Horvath had sabotaged all our defenses, practically held the door open for Morgana, and then distracted Merlin during the only chance he would ever have to rid the world of such a dark sorcerer."

Dave jumped when the world moved around them, bringing them inside a room of the stronghold, just in time to see the demise of the great Merlin. A dagger sliced through the belly of the powerful man, bringing him to his knees as a cruel-looking Morgana swept regally by and a shady-looking man, probably Horvath, stole a page from an ancient tome.

Dave's first instinct was to shout and rush for the dying man, but Balthazar held him back. "It's useless—you can't change a memory," he said, his voice heavy with grief.

It was a hard impulse to ignore, but he managed to control himself. "What about Morgana?" the younger man asked, completely revolted by the events unfolding around him.

"Turn around," Balthazar suggested.

Behind them, Morgana had stopped, confronted by Veronica and Balthazar's doppelganger. Dave felt electricity charge the air, and then the memory-Balthazar was sent flying, hit with some power that Morgana had clearly thrown in his direction. Then came something so strange, Dave wasn't sure what he was witnessing. The beautiful Veronica seemed to go into a trance, her eyes closing as her hands made pushing and pulling motions. Something grated across Dave's nerves in that moment, made him feel like someone was drilling his teeth, and when it stopped Morgana was gone.

His eyes flew back to Veronica, just in time to see the dichotomously wicked and painful glint that had entered her eyes before the Balthazar of the past sealed her inside a nesting doll.

"She sacrificed herself to save us," Balthazar said, his voice tight with emotion, "but it didn't work. By taking Morgana's soul into her own body, all Veronica did was limit the amount of power Morgana had access to—it didn't kill her."

"But it killed Veronica?" Dave guessed.

"No," the older man replied, averting his eyes, "but it will. Even inside the Grimhold, they exist in a conscious state. Over a thousand years of being mingled with Morgana will have corrupted Veronica beyond recognition. Holding out hope that she could ever exist as she once did would be an exercise in futility." But there was something about the way he said it, something that made it clear he wished he had that luxury to hope.

As Dave studied the two Balthazars he saw the mirrored pain, the twin looks of anguish—he had loved Veronica. Perhaps loved her still, even knowing that she could never be the same woman he had fallen for. It was tragic in a way that Dave couldn't relate to, a bitter pain that he had not yet encountered in his short life.

The older man finally turned from the scene, just as the other-him went to Merlin's side. "Morgana was powerful and ruthless, but she didn't share Merlin's innovativeness—or his ethics," he said quietly. "She came to this castle looking for blood and spells."

Balthazar's face reflected a grief so acute that Dave knew he was watching the death of a family. Dave's own family had often been somewhat bewildered by him, and therefore a little distant, but he had always felt sorrow—the gut-twisting pain that outstripped even the most damaging injuries—when one of them had passed on. The scene before him was cruel for all its implications—Merlin had been Balthazar's Master, a position that was just as much friend and mentor as it was father.

"Morgana must be stopped," the words came in a feeble rush from Merlin's lips. "You must find the Prime Merlinian." As Dave watched, he saw the dragon figurine exchange hands and heard the strange prophesy of Merlin's descendant—a sorcerer destined to inherit the strength it would take to defeat Morgana. Before his eyes, he watched the grieving Balthazar swear to find and train the child that was to take Merlin's place, watched the light fade from the eyes of the greatest sorcerer the world had ever known.

As his mind tried to wrap around the fact that Merlin was dead, had _been_ dead long before he'd even been born, the world around him changed. History flashed in front of him, the centuries marching forward as Balthazar Blake traveled around the world, looking for the person destined to where the dragon-ring. Country after country, year after year, child after child—every search ended in vain, and Balthazar looked a little wearier each time he was met with defeat. Dave swallowed as he watched time progress around him. Balthazar had spent over a thousand years alone with his grief and pain, honor forcing him to continue his mission, when the reality was that the child he'd been looking for could exist in any place at any time. He had placed all his hopes in the gamble that he would one day stumble upon the Prime Merlinian—and fate had given him David Stutler.

Dave slipped Merlin's ring off his finger, staring into nothingness as the garden and courtyard slowly took its place around him. There was so much to digest, so much to make sense of that, for once, his brain felt like it was moving too slow. Overwhelmed, he stepped out of the cobbled circles and sat down on a nearby bench. The distant past wasn't supposed to concern him—what should ancient battles matter to a physicist?—but he couldn't ignore the empathy it generated. He'd seen the destruction that Morgana had caused, had witnessed Balthazar's tireless faith in the words of his former Master. Could he turn his back on that?

"It's a lot to take in," Balthazar said softly, moving to stand in front of him. "Let's go back into the store—I'll get you something to drink and you can ask me all those questions that are probably burning your tongue," he suggested.

Time seemed to lapse for Dave, who was probably in shock—one minute he was in the courtyard, the next he was sitting in a dusty armchair inside the _Arcana Cabana_, a short glass of some golden-brown drink being pressed into his hands. Reflexively, he took a sip, then started choking. The bitter fire of alcohol burned a trail down to his stomach, the heat forcing his lungs to spasm and his eyes to water. "What is this?" he asked the older man between wheezes. "You do realize I'm underage, right?"

Balthazar smiled at the display. "Age is relative," he shrugged, ignoring the first question. "Besides, it brought you back to the present, didn't it?"

"At the expense of my lungs, yes," Dave muttered to himself. Being propelled from his thoughts so forcefully was a little disorienting, but the prospect of clearing those thoughts out was even more tantalizing. "Only the Prime Merlinian can defeat Morgana?" he blurted the question that was foremost in his mind.

Balthazar nodded. "Only the Prime Merlinian will have the strength to."

Dave took a deep breath to steady himself. "And you think I'm it?"

"The ring accepted you," the older man said plainly, "and you would have had to channel some sort of power to have seen those memories, even if you didn't know you were doing it. The evidence is stacked against you."

"And this guy," Dave carried on, ignoring the answer he'd been given, "he has to share blood with Merlin?"

Balthazar nodded again.

"So, you're trying to tell me that I'm _Merlin's_ great-something _grandson_?" the younger man snapped.

"Possibly," Balthazar replied. "I never knew Merlin to have children though, so it's more likely you're indirectly related."

"Great," Dave murmured sarcastically. Switching gears, he decided to ask, "And what about Horvath, what happened to him?"

"Trapped within a new layer of the Grimhold, along with two others," the older man said, his tone darkening.

Dave felt his heart speed up, an uncomfortable sensation after the unexpected alcohol. "So I have to fight through every layer before I can even think of facing Morgana?"

"I'm not asking you to do this right away," Balthazar pointed out. "You don't have to face anyone until you're ready, until you've trained. This isn't exactly the most time sensitive problem—the Grimhold won't release any of them until it's commanded to."

Dave closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. There was a pain building up at the base of his skull, and his thoughts were becoming jumbled. Morgana was evil incarnate, a scourge that had to be stopped—but she had been already, locked within a strange prison. What did it matter if she was dealt with permanently? The memory of the trail of carnage she'd left in her wake was painful, enough that it made him what to do something but, in the end, he wasn't sure if he could handle the responsibility. He was a physics nerd, not a hero. Grasping at straws, hoping he could disprove something so that he didn't have to live with the reality of what he'd seen, he turned back toward the door to the garden. "That was a film of some kind," he said firmly. "You can't see someone else's memories; those were just cutting-edge holographics or something. There must have been projectors hidden around the courtyard." Which didn't explain how sensory the entire experience had been, but he wasn't exactly being logical anymore.

"You're welcome to look," Balthazar moved aside as the younger man stood and walked past him.

Dave pushed back the curtain, but the door was gone—there was nothing but brick wall underneath. Desperately, his hands raced over the uneven stone, hoping to find a latch or crease that he could use to open it back up. His fingers found nothing, and he laid his head against the wall in defeat. "I can't do this," he said loudly. And it was true—he couldn't face everything he'd just learned; it was too much, too soon.

"A thousand years is a long time, Dave," Balthazar replied from behind him. "I didn't meander through all that endless time, searching for my apprentice, only to be told no."

"I _can't_," the younger man repeated, turning around. "Look, I'm sorry about everything that happened to you, but I can't just drop everything in my life because somebody's thousand-year-old trinket has decided that I've won the genetic lottery." He backed away from the other and moved toward the exit. "Morgana's not a threat as long as no one opens the Grimhold—your quest was purposeless."

* * *

For the second time, Balthazar watched the Prime Merlinian turn his back and leave, just as so many others had throughout his long life. It was a sight he was truly beginning to loathe, but he understood Dave's reasons. It was selfish to ask such a young man to give up whatever hopes he'd entertained of the future in order to dedicate the rest of his life to sorcery—but it was still necessary. Morgana was immobilized, not defeated and, no matter what Dave thought, there was always the risk of her getting free. All it would take was one person who was crazy and determined enough to see it happen. He could only stand between the world and its destruction for so long before the threat had to be erased for good; he was weary with this mission.

Dave had a lot to come to terms with—his entire life had just been flipped upside-down—but Balthazar was tired of waiting. Given time, the younger man would follow of his own accord, but until then Balthazar would just have to force his hand. The only problem was: how did one _make_ the Prime Merlinian submit? He pondered that as he went out to retrieve the boy.

It wasn't long before he spotted the younger man, but he held back and observed from his vantage point across the street.

Dave was sitting outside a building—a radio station, by the looks of it—chatting amiably with a young girl. She looked to be about Dave's age, pale and pretty and blonde. Her face was sweet and open, and Dave smiled at her with a brightness so genuine she had to feel like the center of his universe.

Something ugly reared its head within Balthazar. Logically, he'd known that Dave would have to have friends and family, but visual proof of that fact made him resent it a little. He had had no one for centuries, except for the promise of an apprentice, and he had hung on to that promise like a lifeline. Dave had been his whole reason for existing long before the boy had even been born. To be reminded that he had to _share_ the boy with others was intolerable. He had systematically lost every person in his life to greed, death, and other people, but he _would_ _not_ lose Dave.

With a soft exhale, he turned around, heading back to his home—he had preparations to make. When the time was right, well… he already had the Locking Ring in place.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Becky finally asked. "You've seemed a little off since last night."

Dave gave a bitter chuckle to himself—that was an understatement. He'd run into Becky by coincidence, but she'd gone a long way in soothing his frazzled nerves. Her question reminded him what he was running from though, and the knowledge ate at him. "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded, the little half-smile he loved playing across her lips.

He rubbed at the back of his head; the pressure headache that he'd gotten earlier was still building. "If you had to chose between doing what you love or making a difference, what would you do?"

She thought about it for a minute. "I'd probably do what I love," she finally answered. "But music's in my blood, Dave, and music isn't science."

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, why do you have to choose?" she countered. "Science is always making a difference, and you're the smartest person I've ever met in my life. Why can't you use physics to do whatever it is you think needs to be done?"

Dave thought about that for a very long moment. He'd been thrust into a world he didn't understand, a world that shouldn't have existed, and yet… He couldn't help but remember the times that Balthazar had offered theoretically sound explanations for seemingly unexplainable situations. Was there some kind of science behind magic? And if that were true, then what grounds did he have for rejecting Balthazar's tutelage?

"Dave?" Becky frowned, concern lining her face when he didn't answer her right away.

He turned from her, staring out into the city. "Something weird is going on in my life right now," he said flatly. "I don't even know what to tell you without sounding like I'm going insane."

"You can tell me anything," she insisted.

And he knew he could—with anything but this. This was the deal breaker, the bomb that he could not drop on anyone else; it was his burden alone. And, honestly, who would believe him? Becky would want proof, just as he had, and aside from an assortment of jewelry, he had nothing to show her. He could skip the magical aspect entirely and tell her that he was being stalked, but that would only make her worry more than his silence would.

Dave sighed and kept his peace, but at the back of his mind a thousand doubts and worries began to bubble, not the least of which was what Balthazar would try to do next.

He managed to make it through the rest of his day without having a breakdown, which he thought was fairly impressive, given the circumstances. By the time the sun had set, his headache was blazing so badly that he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and forget anything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Merlin's ring was a heavy and accusing weight in his pocket, but he was content to ignore it for now.

Of course, he wouldn't have gone to sleep so readily if he had known what was waiting for him in his dreams.

* * *

A/N: Sorry, this chapter was a little delayed by my compulsive need to see the movie again before I made any solid decisions about the plot. Things actually seem to heading in a direction I hadn't quite planned, but that's fairly typical with my writing. Also, I lied—this story isn't going to be "relatively short"; we'll be lucky if I manage not to write a saga here.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Disney owns everything, and I am not making any money off of this.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

_Merlin stood before Dave, an aged man with piercing eyes. His hair was white and wild, his skin pale, and he had the look of a benevolent grandfather, but there was a keenness to his gaze and a quirk to his lips that suggested very little got by him._

"_This is not happening," Dave moaned, his hands moving restlessly._

_Merlin simply watched him flail about, much as Balthazar had done before._

"_I don't believe in magic or out of body experiences," the younger man continued, pacing in the white ether that surrounded them._

"_Then you must be dreaming," Merlin shrugged carelessly. "Balthazar left you with a lot to think of."_

_Dave narrowed his eyes. "Why are you rationalizing?"_

"_It's disturbing, isn't it?" The sorcerer smiled. "You're used to being the bastion of reason, the sound argument against insane opposition. Dreams aren't meant to make sense, and yet here I am, being coolly logical. Does it bother you, Dave Stutler?"_

_Dave took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. "What is going on?"_

"_You've been handed down a cruel legacy—by right of birth you are expected to be more cunning and powerful than any sorcerer who has ever lived." Merlin sighed. "You were not prepared for the task; circumstance prevented Balthazar from reaching you at a more impressionable age. Now, as an adult, you've been thrust into a world that modern society tells you cannot exist, so you reject it." He drew closer. "It is not cowardice that drives you away, but there is some level of fear at work—you fear change or, perhaps, you fear wanting to change but not being able to. You must forgo these concerns; too much rides on your transformation from a young man into a sorcerer."_

_Dave shook his head. "Morgana's not—"_

"_Morgana is _always_ a threat," Merlin interrupted with a wave of his hand. "As long as there are Morganian's to serve her, then the only thing keeping this world from total destruction is Balthazar's vigilance." He pointed at the younger man. "You must begin your training, or we will never be rid of her."_

"_I'm dreaming," Dave said loudly, closing his eyes. "I had a bad day followed by a bad headache; bad dreams are expected to follow."_

"_Balthazar is coming for you," Merlin stated quietly. "He is not a cruel man, but you will be hard-pressed to find mercy within him. How long do you think it will be before you bend to his will?"_

"_That's it?" Dave asked incredulously. "You bridged the space between life and death, not to mention time, just to give me a warning about a guy I already knew was stalking me?"_

_But Merlin was already gone, his image faded as the ether began to take shape. Within a matter of moments the white nothingness had been replaced with the familiar stone setting of Dave's lab._

_Balthazar materialized, a wisp of smoke at first that slowly gained substance and form. He stood at the center of the room, right over the old subway turn-around platform, looking like some sort of fantasy warrior in his hat, mismatched suit, and ancient trench coat. "What are you afraid of, Dave?"_

_He had a sudden, keen insight that this was probably what it was like to take drugs; everything was fast and incomprehensible. Was he dreaming or having another out of body experience? Had that been Merlin just now or a cunning hoax cooked up by Balthazar, or possibly his own overwhelmed brain playing tricks? "What's going on?"_

"_You want to do what's right," Balthazar roamed the lower part of the lab like a tiger at the zoo, pacing with restless, unspent power. "You saw what Morgana did, what she can do again if not stopped, and I know that you weren't unaffected—you wanted to take action, yet you refuse when I give you the means to do it. Why is that?"_

_Dave sat on the stairs, watching the older man move. There was something hypnotically intense about the sorcerer's stride, the way his leg muscles bunched and coiled as he marched around the open space. Absently, he answered, "Because no matter how convincing you are, there's always the chance that I'm just losing my mind and having delusions. And even if you are real, I still don't want to play hero."_

_Balthazar didn't stop, merely turned mid-stride until he was standing at the bottom of Dave's stairs, almost eye-to-eye with the other. "Why?"_

"_Why?" the younger man repeated on a laugh. "Because I would find a way to mess it up. I don't want anyone's survival to depend on me—that's a lot of pressure that I can't live with. A genius I may be, but I have low self-esteem and an irregular learning curve; that's not the kind of person you want saving the world." He laughed again, but it rang a little resentful this time. "You know, most kids wanted to grow up to be Superman or a doctor, I wanted to be Tesla—a scientist, not a hero."_

"_I didn't choose to be a sorcerer either, Dave," Balthazar admitted. "It was medieval Europe, and my family was the poorest of the poor; they couldn't support me, so I was sent off to be apprenticed to someone. As I understand it, I was supposed to end up at the local tannery, but Merlin intervened. He saw me in the street that day, saw my potential, and literally bought me from the man I had just been apprenticed to." He shrugged, as though he weren't saying anything out of the ordinary. "Sorcery has a way of choosing us, not the other way around." Here he paused, a serious look in his eyes. "Think about it this way: if Merlin hadn't found me, I would have died a millennium ago, probably from something ridiculously curable by modern standards. But, instead, I've gotten to watch history spread out around me."_

"_Alone," Dave pointed out, remembering the glimpses of the bleak journey he'd been shown._

_Balthazar leaned closer to the seated man. "No one ever said there wouldn't be sacrifice."_

"_That you didn't choose to make!" Dave snapped. "Merlin made the decision for you!"_

"_It wouldn't have been my choice anyway," Balthazar shook his head. "You think I wanted to work at the tannery? My parents sent me there because the tanner was willing to barter for me. Even if Merlin hadn't found me that day, my fate would have already been decided."_

_For the first time, it became painfully obvious that Balthazar was from an age long past. Dave couldn't imagine being content or passive about having the shape of his life be designed by someone else. It was unthinkable, and yet Balthazar was asking him to do just that—to sit by and let the older man run his life._

"_I had hoped that this conversation would talk some sense it you," Balthazar sighed._

"_I'm not being unreasonable," Dave pointed out angrily._

_Balthazar shook his head and continued, "But I can see we're only going to end up arguing." He sighed again. "I do value your opinion, Dave, but under the circumstances, it _has_ to be a moot point."_

"_What are you talking about?" the younger asked. The hair at the back of his neck rose, sending goosebumbs down his back. Something dark was lurking in the other man's tone, something that made Dave instinctively wary._

"_I told you that you were my apprentice whether you agreed to be or not—I wasn't joking," Balthazar replied, dangerously quiet. "You're going to begin your training, because I'm coming to get you."_

* * *

Dave awoke with a start, shivering in an ice-cold sweat. His dream had been ominous and disturbing, and it hadn't offered him the solace he'd been seeking. He had hoped that sleep would give him the time and opportunity to relax so that, come the morning, he would be able to sort through his thoughts and make some kind of objective decision regarding the twists his life had decided to take. Instead, he'd been put even further on edge—which made him wonder how much room he had left before he was simply pushed over.

He wasn't sure if he'd had another out of body experience—whether he'd actually made contact with Balthazar, as he had before—or if he had merely been dreaming, but either way the implication was clear: he didn't have time to mull things over. Balthazar was lurking out in the darkness somewhere, maybe not to kidnap him, but to likely further complicate matters. He had to get away, find somewhere that he could spend some time alone, without the worry of being caught or discovered.

The sorcerer already knew about his lab and apartment, so where did that leave? He could risk going to the NYU campus and hiding in one of the libraries, but all public places would pose a threat; he could catch a train going up state and try to think of how to lie to his parents about why he was visiting so unexpectedly; or he could go to a friend's place and pray that Balthazar didn't have some way to track him. Dave didn't want to involve anyone in his problem, but crashing at someone else's place seemed like the best idea. His parents would ask too many questions, but someone like Becky would be more than willing to let him bum around her apartment for a few hours—he could tell her that Bennett was having someone over, and she would just smile and hold the door wide open, like she always did.

* * *

Balthazar knew that Dave would be on the run after the dream but, in his defense, he hadn't instigated it—he'd merely reached out when he'd felt the presence of his former Master, and had found Dave instead. It was a little baffling, but he wouldn't linger on the logistics of it; he had more important things to worry about. Where would Dave go? Obvious locations, like his lab and his home, would be avoided, and Manhattan was too big of a city for Balthazar to hope he would just wander across his wayward apprentice in the course of a day. Of course, eventually Dave would have to go to classes or back to his apartment, but the older man didn't feel like waiting however long that would take. From experience, he knew that young men were more stubborn than practical—Dave could out-wait him by a long shot. So the only option was to find the boy, but how?

Suddenly, Balthazar remembered the Barometric Pressure Spell. It had been designed to locate objects with immense magical properties by locking in on their signatures and displacing the atmosphere over them, creating a small storm. The problem was that Dave was a person, and people had immeasurable _potential_ for magic but were not, themselves, dense with the property. The Locking Ring was certainly magic, but not high level enough for the spell to work—the only thing Dave had in his possession that would trigger the spell was Merlin's ring, and it was a gamble as to whether he'd have it on him or not. Still, the possibility was worth looking into.

As morning dawned upon the great city, Balthazar retrieved his car from the impound—sadly, he hadn't been able to work the same trick on his black beauty as he had with the _Arcana Cabana_. On the upside, the car was immensely happy to see him, and she purred the whole way to what he deemed as a suitably high building. The unfortunate thing about the Barometric Pressure Spell was that it could be hard to see in places like New York; the buildings were too dense and too high and, unless he could get above them, they would render his spell useless.

As a man born in the early Dark Ages, he never failed to marvel at the beauty and majesty of a skyscraper; they towered above the teeming city life, like brash sentinels that wished to climb all the way to the heavens. The sheer audacity of them never failed to bring a smile to his lips—as a child, the biggest thing he'd ever been privileged enough to see had been Merlin's fortress and, astounding though it had been, it simply could not compare to these modern declarations of human ingenuity.

He reached the rooftop in no time at all, but he paused there. The city below him was bathed in the golden light of dawn and an early morning hush—admittedly, not as quiet in Manhattan as other places. For the first time in ten years, he could look out at the world and marvel at how far humanity had come. He stood in awe, breathing in the cool morning air, and for a moment he was at peace—then he remembered why he was there.

With rapid flicks of his fingers, Balthazar invoked the spell. His eyes darted from left to right, looking for the storm that would lead him to Merlin's ring, and silently prayed it didn't appear over Dave's apartment. A sudden crack of thunder had him whipping his head around, a slow smile curling his lips when he saw the spell working over a section of midtown.

* * *

Dave jumped and shivered as lightning illuminated the cozy living room of Becky's apartment. He was a little chagrined at his reaction—after working with the Tesla coils as much as he had, he should have been immune—but the storm was intense and it had come out of no where. Even more disturbing: if he looked out the window he could almost swear that it wasn't storming at all on the next block. The weather was so seemingly unnatural that he couldn't help but feel dread over it.

He groaned at his turn of thoughts—he'd come to Becky's so that he could relax and regroup, and instead he was jumping at the slightest noise and seeing abnormal phenomena where they probably did not exist. Belatedly, he was starting to regret not accompanying Becky and her roommate to the café down the street; he was beginning to suspect that being alone in his state of mind probably wasn't the best idea. Deciding that he would catch up with them, Dave grabbed his jacket and promptly walked into the back of a chair when the power went out.

The darkness was terrifyingly absolute, despite the fact that there should have been daylight spilling through the windows. He'd been in the apartment enough times to know where things generally were, but as he stumbled around everything was suddenly unfamiliar—chairs and tables seemed to pop up out of no where, as though the room were folding in on itself.

Whispers began to bleed out of the shadows, unsettling sounds laced with power and layered over one another to create a constant, disturbing murmur. A strange coolness lanced up Dave's arm, spreading throughout his body from the Locking Ring. As he fell to his knees, consciousness blurring, he swore he heard someone speak, but he couldn't make out the words.

* * *

A/N: I'm not really that pleased with this chapter, but I never am with turning-point chapters.

Gratuitous thank yous to everyone who has taken the time to review thus far—your kind words and speculations keep me going.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Disney owns all.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

No one could say he hadn't tried up until now—they could definitely point out that his attempts had been laughably misguided and ineffective, but they had to agree that the effort had been there. And it wasn't as though it was easy to carry on after being so thoroughly abandoned; he still woke up in a cold sweat some nights, feeling the lonely ache that had curled itself around his psyche. He hadn't allowed it to immobilize him though, and that was the important thing. True, for a few soul-crushing years, he had waited for something, _anything_ to help him out of the chaos he'd been thrust into, but when it had become apparent that no one was going to save him, he'd decided to save himself. It wasn't that hard, really—all he'd had to do was dust off a few tricks, rub his own ego a little, and laugh in the face of everyone and everything.

It wasn't enough though—not the fame, or the success, or even the adoring fans—nothing could sooth the bewildered hurt and rage that had built up inside of him. So he had come up with a plan. Instead of his childhood fantasies of being sappily reunited with his Master, his dreams now were about revenge. He would do something so radical, so unbelievable, that the Morganians of the world would be forced to sit up and take notice of him, including his Master. He'd show the sorry bastard what a prize he'd really thrown away!

Nothing less than perfection would do for Drake Stone.

* * *

Balthazar detachedly watched Dave sink to the floor, trapped in a freezing vortex created by the Locking Ring. Under normal circumstances, he would have been concerned for his apprentice—he hadn't wanted to use the Locking Ring so soon, seeing as it had more or less been his last resort—but he was too busy trying to control himself. Over a thousand years of emotional mastery had flown straight out the window when he'd realized that Dave had gone running straight to the girl. What was it about her that was so special? Why was she his haven?

Balthazar prided himself on being calm and rational, but this… this was intolerable, this was cruel. Everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by reminders that nothing in this world belonged to him, that outside of the _Arcana Cabana_ he had neither friend nor ally. And then he'd seen Dave, _who should have been his_, sitting in the middle of that world, and his control had simply snapped.

"It was never supposed to be this complicated," Balthazar sighed to the unconscious Dave, shaking his head. "You were supposed to be younger—quick to believe in magic, accepting of your destiny, and trusting of other people. If it hadn't been for the Urn, we wouldn't be having so many problems now." He levitated the boy off the floor, pausing to study his slack features. How could someone so peaceful now be so defiant, and how was Balthazar going to overcome that stubborn streak? "What am I supposed to do with you, Dave?" he asked, running his fingers over the boy's face. "Merlin help us, but I don't know how to make you obey me without making you hate me first."

* * *

Drake still remembered the whole ordeal in perfect detail. He'd woken up early that morning to practice levitation and he'd become so engrossed in getting the skill _right_, in making it look _perfect_ that he hadn't noticed his Master was late. It wasn't unusual—Morganians weren't exactly known for being punctual—but by the time late afternoon rolled around, he'd become worried. It wasn't like his Master to simply not show up at all; Monastario could be a little selfish, and he was definitely overly critical of his apprentice, but he'd never let Drake down before. Drake had let it slide, but something heavy had started to grip his heart that day. When the next day ended and Monastario still hadn't contacted him, Drake had begun to worry; perhaps a Merlinian had found his Master and done any number of their terrible tricks to keep the man from 'being a threat'. The thought was horrible, but Drake had held onto it, because the alternative was unthinkable: if Monastario wasn't being kept from him by force, then he was doing it by choice.

Drake had clung to his sick hope for two hellish weeks before he'd finally caught sight of his Master. Time had slowed down for that one moment, and the scene had burned itself into his brain. It was a late autumn day and the fallen leaves were swirling in the wind, catching whatever light could pierce the gray clouds that covered the sky. Drake was on the left side of the street, wandering the shops aimlessly, and Monastario was on the opposite side of the street, coming out of an occult store. Two steps behind him was a small child, wearing a ring and carrying an Incantus.

Drake's hope had died amid hurt and confusion. As he watched Monastario and the child walk away, he'd finally understood that his Master had left him—he'd been abandoned. There had been no warning, no explanations; it was as if Monastario had just woken up one day and decided he wanted a different apprentice.

Of course, it wasn't all sour grapes—if his Master hadn't left, Drake never would have become the premier stage magician he was today. On the other hand, he also wouldn't be a half-trained, neurotic Morganian who _had_ to perform stage tricks as a matter of survival. It was sort of a 'Catch 22': things had ended up wonderful and horrible, and the sheer dichotomy of it made him so angry he couldn't see straight.

The pain and rage had been particularly close to the surface these days, always bubbling within him, always looking for an outlet. His performances didn't relieve him like they once had, and he'd taken to throwing plasma-balls in the alleys behind the theatres. It was as he'd watched a stack of broken crate-palettes explode in a shower of sizzling electricity that he'd been hit with a plan. In the years since his abandonment he'd been soothing his own hurts by outdoing reasonably talented con artists when he _should_ have been outdoing other Morganians. And, being Drake Stone, it had to be bigger and better than anything that had ever been achieved—it had to be loud and in everyone's faces, something that not even Monastario could miss.

Morgana hadn't been his first thought—involving other people would not only steal his thunder, it would make things complicated—but the more angles he looked at it from, the more it had seemed like the perfect solution. No one had ever freed Morgana from wherever she'd been hidden, and he'd be performing a first if he managed it. Not only that, but Morgana's main prerogative was The Rising—getting her out would be a two-for-one deal.

The problem was, no one knew where Morgana had ended up. Rumor was that Merlin's last apprentices had had a hand in whatever had made the great Morgana pull a Houdini, but there was nothing concrete. Some Morganians said she'd been sealed in an object, others said her soul had been ripped from her body, and still others said she'd been thrust between dimensions. The only thing anyone knew for sure was that Balthazar Blake was the best candidate for knowing the full story.

* * *

Dave awoke to a coldness so paralyzing that he wondered if he'd been stuffed into a meat locker—like a mafia version of the indignity he'd suffered in high school. Slowly his other senses filtered through the cold: he could hear quiet noises, like the general clicks and drones of machinery; the smell of polished wood, dust and oil stung his nose and the back of his throat; blearily, he cracked his eyes and was rewarded with some kind of cluttered study room; and his shoulders were aching. That last one gripped his attention completely, forcing his eyes entirely open so that he could take stock of the situation.

The room wasn't small, probably about the size of his lab's main floor. It was lined with bookshelves, desks, chairs, strange gizmos that were releasing steam into the already humid air, and there were even two large fireplaces along the walls, but the center of the room had been kept clear. There were no windows or decorations on the walls, not even a carpet to cover the worn floorboards—in fact, aside from the furniture, the only decoration the room sported was series of circles and complex symbols burnt into the floor. That is, if you didn't count Dave as a decoration. His shoulders were aching because he was hanging from some kind of support beam in the ceiling, his hands tied together and strung up over his head, raising him far enough that only the very tips of his sneakers still touched the ground. He'd lost feeling in his wrists and hands for the most part—they wouldn't move but he could still tell that they felt hollow and swollen—probably from cut off circulation.

He felt his heart speed up uncomfortably, forcing him to pant lightly just to supply all the oxygen his confused brain needed. Before passing out, he'd been in Becky's apartment, hadn't he? What had happened, _why_ had he passed out? Then, slowly, the memory came back to him: the unnatural storm, the preternatural darkness, the whispers, and then a coldness so absolute it had robbed him of his faculties. There had been someone there, though; he'd heard someone speak before he'd lost consciousness, but who?

His mind stuttered at that thought. _Who_? More like 'who else'? He only knew one person that would know how to do any of that, or would even want to in the first place. "Balthazar," he muttered the name like a curse.

"That's really no way to address your Master," the infuriatingly calm voice of the man in question rang out.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Dave disparaged. With a little effort, he craned his head to the side, noticing Balthazar where he had not been previously. The corner was bare, aside from the man, and there was no door there. In fact, now that he was looking for exits, he noticed that there was no door anywhere, unless one was hiding under a piece of furniture. "Where am I? Why am I here? _What_ is going on?" he snapped the questions, rapid fire, at the other man.

Balthazar moved from his corner, an enigmatic smile on his lips as he came closer. "With me, which is all that matters. To begin your training or break your stubborn streak, whichever needs to happen first. And I got tired of waiting for you to come around, Dave," he answered, stopping just a hand's span from the captured student. "Sometimes, we must make sacrifices for the greater good. If you won't make the sacrifice needed to take your rightful place in magical history, then I will—by suppressing everything I am, everything about morals Merlin taught me; I'll drag my code of honor through hell and back if that's what it takes to make you submit." He reached out, running the backs of his fingers over Dave's face. "This isn't a passing offer; it's not an offer at all. You _will_ be trained, and if I have to become the most crooked, intolerable man to see it done, then that's what I'll do. It's not fair to either of us, it's not what we would have chosen for ourselves, but we must see it done."

Dave tried to shrink away from Balthazar's touch, but his shoulders were hurting so badly now that it was hard to pivot backward or to the sides. More disturbing still, the older man's touch wasn't unpleasant; it was soft and comforting, not at all like the words that were accompanying the caress. "This is kidnapping," Dave finally managed to stutter out. "People will start to look for me unless you let me go."

"Unless there's a sorcerer in the police force, no one will be able to find you," Balthazar countered, moving away. "This place doesn't exist for people of a non-magical inclination."

Dave squelched the urge to lean back toward the man. Not for the first time, he found that he had enjoyed Balthazar's casual, easy touches and he keenly felt their absence when they were taken away. Dave had never been much of a physical person—probably because his intelligence and social awkwardness made him off-putting to others—but as he'd gotten older he'd found that he was beginning to crave the warm touch of those around him. Something about Balthazar's touch was addictive, perhaps because it was contact from one—dare he admit it?—sorcerer to another. The thought didn't sit with him well; in what universe was it considered okay to crave caress of his stalker/kidnapper? None; it was simply wrong. Never mind the fact that they were both men, adding an extra shade of taboo to the situation; it was just wrong to find himself attracted to any aspect of Balthazar after what the older man had already put him through. And whatever the sorcerer was planning to do next sounded ominous, at best—Stockholm Syndrome had no room in this situation.

"Why are you doing this?" Dave asked quietly. "I like my life the way it is—I'm happy with my Tesla coils, my handful of friends, and my tiny little apartment."

"I know," Balthazar returned, just as quiet. There was true regret in his blue eyes, but the emotion didn't seem to sway him. "But Morgana _must_ be stopped, and you're the only one who can. You are all that stands between the world and it's utter destruction at the hands of mad men, Dave. Who knows when the next Prime Merlinian will come along? It's too dangerous to wait—Morgana has allies everywhere; if I don't train you now, Merlinians will lose this war, and _everyone_ will be forced to suffer the consequences." He shook his head. "We don't have a choice, so your training begins today."

The circles beneath Dave erupted in green flames, licking heatlessly around his suspended body. Desperately, he tried to edge away, but the toes of his sneakers kept slipping, bringing him to hang right back at the center of the flames.

Outside the flaming circles, Balthazar began to pace, walking around the perimeter like a deadly predator. "Lesson number one," he said, ignoring Dave's futile attempts to distance himself from the fires, "I am your Master. Do you acknowledge this?"

"No," Dave panted, now trying to use his shoulders and elbows to lift himself off the ground. His shoulders were much too stiff and tired though, and he found himself constantly jerking back downward.

"I possess both age and wisdom beyond your comprehension, and I have been tasked by Merlin himself to train you," Balthazar carried on, swiftly moving through the first ring of fire that separated them. "Therefore, by seniority, logic, and destiny, I am your Master. Do you acknowledge this?"

"No," Dave repeated emphatically, finally too tired to move, "I don't."

Balthazar drew through the green flames until he was standing just in front of the younger man. "I am a sorcerer of the seven-hundred-and-seventy-seventh degree," he replied seriously, his eyes unreadable. "This is your last chance to willingly acknowledge me as your Master before I force the words past your lips."

"It's not going to happen," Dave said stubbornly.

"So be it," Balthazar drawled, his fingers slashing through the air in a series of complex sigils.

* * *

A/N: I'm almost positive that I can't do Drake Stone any justice in this story, but I'm going to write him anyway—I need at least some semblance of a plot. Yes, I'm probably taking a lot of liberties with his character, but this is an AU.

Also, Fall Semester has just kicked off, so either one of two things will happen: 1) I will start writing like crazy, or 2) I will start to go missing again, until I can get used to my new schedule.

Disclaimer: Did anyone else watch Disney's Zorro, back when they still used to do Vault Disney in the wee hours of the morning? Monastario was the name of the crooked Comandante that prompted Don Diego to become Zorro. I wouldn't read too much into his appearance here—I needed a name, and I happened to be watching Zorro at the time. Also, Sorcerer's Apprentice is Disney's as well.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The sigils Balthazar traced through the air erupted in a shower of sparks, small embers of light that crashed to the floor to feed the green flames around Dave.

A moment passed after that, then two, until the younger man was almost sure nothing was happening—but as soon as the thought crossed his mind, his world tilted wildly. Looking down, he saw that the fire immediately surrounding him had turned an angry red, and it was slowly creeping its way up his legs, though he felt no heat or burning. No, what he felt was far worse—spreading from his legs outward, it was as though someone had slipped beneath his skin with a thousand little fingernails, scratching lightly at his insides. It wasn't necessarily unpleasant, but it certainly had the capacity to be. At the moment, the nails were being soft and gentle, but there was a threat in their presence, an intimate promise of pain.

"All you have to do is acknowledge me," Balthazar told him, once more moving to pace the outside of the flaming circles. "Say the word, and everything stops."

Dave didn't like the sound of that, and the older man's dark tone was enough to send shivers up his spine. A few moments later, he found out he was right on all accounts—right to expect pain, and right to be wary of Balthazar.

To say that Dave's world erupted would be unfair; the pain started slowly at first: tiny increases in pressure, a scratch that was uncomfortable and gaining force. In fact, it wasn't for several minutes that things got truly nasty. The pressure of the fingernails slowly increased, bit-by-bit, but once Dave hit his threshold it became unbearable. Suddenly, it was like a thousand angry claws were within him, shredding apart his muscles to scrape against his bones. He had experienced painful things before—not the least of which included abdominal surgery and accidental electrocution—but this was simply beyond compare. There was no respite in sight, and the only way to stop it was the one thing he refused to do.

"Just say the word," Balthazar coaxed. His tone was relaxed, almost bored, but there was something about the way he moved that suggested he was uncomfortable.

Dave felt a sweat break out along his skin, slicking his back and making his clothes stick to him. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the world of agony that had set fire within him, and shook his head at the older man. "No," he croaked out simply.

It was hard to tell, now that there was sweat in his eyes, but he thought Balthazar's eyes narrowed in anger. "I'm just holding the sword, Dave," the older man snapped, "you're the one impaling yourself. This doesn't have to last any longer than you want it to."

Balthazar's dichotomy was baffling to Dave's scattering and delirious thoughts. Why should _he_ be mad? He was the one who'd started this insanity in the first place! It seemed wrong that he should try to blame Dave for what was happening, but it was clear proof that he was becoming distressed by the torture that he was inflicting.

And it was torture—what had once simply been uncomfortable was now like an iron lance pressing slowly through his belly. Distantly, he remembered the memory Balthazar had shown him; he remembered the bodies Morgana had left in her wake, run through with ice and glass. He knew, abruptly, how they had felt as they'd died, only he was probably not as afraid as they'd been because he knew without a doubt that Balthazar needed him alive. But, all the same, he felt a sudden kinship with those men, centuries dead, and his resistance slipped a little—they had suffered a horror few could understand, and it was only right that someone avenge their deaths. But Dave was no hero, the thought came back to haunt him.

A particularly vicious dig against a soft organ snapped him from his thoughts, forcing an angry groan from his lips. He'd been careful to make no sound, he wanted there to be no doubt that he'd never given in, but the pain cause such a fierce and aching fire within him that the sound had simply escaped him.

Balthazar paused at the noise, then gave an angry snarl and stomped his foot against the ground; immediately, the red flames extinguished and slowly rekindled into a blue fire.

Dave hung limply, panting heavily as he passively tried to shake the sweat out of his eyes. The nasty little claws were gone, but the irritation they'd caused still throbbed within him—not quite pain, but not quite the absence of pain either. Below him, the blue flames popped and waved serenely, releasing the scent of lemongrass and sweet oats into the air. Or perhaps he imagined that part; reality was beginning to blur around the edges a little.

"I was never this stubborn at your age," Balthazar said tightly. "But times were different, I suppose. Your century breeds stubbornness like a plague." He drew closer again, the anger in his face clear, but it was mingled with worry and sympathy. For all his bluster and insanity, Balthazar was not an unfeeling man—he just took his duties much too seriously. "I'm not doing this because I think it's fun, Dave. You understand that, right?"

Dave didn't want to nod, but he _did_ understand. They were two opposing forces that had to bombard one another until some sort of reaction was achieved. It was simple and scientific—and it did not at all change the fact that he'd just been tortured. His whole life had been a litany of abuse at the hands of others, both verbal and physical, but he'd never experienced a pain as keen or as unforgiving as the one Balthazar had just introduced him to. So he _understood_, but he still hated the older man for it.

Slowly, as he contemplated this new emotion—he'd never really _hated_ anyone before—Dave became aware that his body was cooling, the muscles relaxing as his tensions eased, and the memory of pain became dull and distant. But not forgotten. Still, the comforting strength the blue flames were imparting him with was more than welcome. After only a matter of minutes, he felt just as he had before he'd ever noticed Balthazar was in the room: a little bleary and a lot panicked, but otherwise fine. It couldn't last, though; if nothing else, he knew that much.

Balthazar continued to circle the younger man, just inside the first ring of green flames now. His expression was pinched, as though he knew he'd made a mistake but wasn't sure how to fix it. "I don't understand why you're resisting so much. I'm only asking you to give up the time it will take to defeat Morgana," he breathed, his brow furrowed. "After that, you can go back to your coils, your friends, and your tiny apartment; I'm just asking for the interim between now and then, and the sooner you give in, the sooner you can be rid of me."

That nearly undid Dave. He'd come to realize that, much like a dog with a bone, Balthazar would never give up. So the sooner he began his training, the sooner he could defeat Morgana, and then he could turn away from the older man and never look back. It was that simple—and he still hated it. Maybe he was just being stubborn now because of all the pain he'd been forced to endure only minutes ago, but whatever it was it certainly didn't make him feel like cooperating, no matter how tempting the bait was.

Balthazar must have read the answer in his face, because he closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. Dave sincerely hoped he was giving the older man a migraine, but the vindictive thought died when Balthazar looked back up, a decision shining in his eyes—it seemed he had only been thinking. Balthazar made no motions this time, but the air in the room abruptly thickened, the humidity doubling.

Dave, who had never really stopped sweating in the first place, found the mugginess oppressive—still, it wasn't horrible. Either this new tactic was really obscure, or it hadn't truly started yet.

"You're too stubborn to bend for pain," Balthazar said into the silence of the room, "so perhaps you'll bend for pleasure instead."

The words sparked a fear so visceral that Dave immediately tensed. He'd already flirted with thoughts of Stockholm Syndrome—he didn't need to make it a reality. Pleasure would break him, he knew it; he received the warm intimacy so infrequently that he knew his resistance would eventually melt.

Lick by lick, the flames surrounding Dave slowly turned the color of the midnight sky—not blue or black or green, but some glorious combination of all three. The slow dance of the strange color was mesmerizing, but its beauty did not diminish its danger. At the first touch of this new flame, Dave felt his body grow heavy as a curious hum began to dance up his spine. From there, small tendrils of warmth spread out to every corner of his being, until it was as though he were surrounded in a golden haze. But, just as with the pain, what was merely pleasant soon intensified; the tendrils fanned out, delving above and below his skin, mapping his body and what areas seemed to draw the best responses out of him. The gentle caresses became teasing touches, phantom hands stroking him in places that were far too sensitive.

This was worse than the pain, somehow: it was a pleasure so beguiling and absolute that he was paralyzed by it. And there was no outlet to be had; he couldn't move, couldn't direct what was happening, and his body was responding without even a hint of his permission. Mechanically, anatomically, he knew he couldn't stop his body from its natural response—after a certain point, there was nothing left for his body to do other than to become primed for sex—but that didn't make it any less infuriating. He didn't want to experience this at the hands of a madman. How could someone who caused him so much trouble also give him so much pleasure? The mere thought was so unbalanced that he didn't know how to deal with it.

A finger, solitary but full of purpose, ran up Dave's spine, sending sparks, both literal and figurative, dancing across the captured man's nerves. For a moment, Dave thought this was just a new trick of the fire, but there was a presence behind him—in his golden haze, he had missed the fact that Balthazar had slipped from sight.

The older man's touches were hesitant at first, almost reverent—a gentle touch here, a brief caress there—never anything overtly intimate or purposefully seductive. He touched with the curiosity and wonder of a man who had long been denied the luxury—he touched just like Dave would have, had he felt the inclination and not been tied up. Unfortunately, he also touched with electricity; sparks inexplicably jumped from his hands, jolting and teasing the younger man in ways he never thought he would have found pleasurable.

Dave put up an admirable fight—he couldn't move, but he held on to his resistance and bolstered his newfound hatred. He thought that, with a little luck, he might be able to survive this new persuasion, but when Balthazar's hands began to slide lower on his body, he knew he was in trouble. One hand flirted with his hip, delving beneath the band of his jeans to better feel him. Even without the sparks, this touch was electrifying: it was the first true skin-to-skin contact they ever made, outside of Balthazar's errant face-stroking. The sorcerer's fingers slid over the contours of Dave's hip, mapping his body as it made a journey to more exotic places.

Dave had little in the way of sexual experience, aside from what simply came from instinct. He knew well enough how to pleasure himself, and how to do it so that it felt the best, so it seemed both odd and unfair that the lightest caress from Balthazar should eclipse anything he'd done on his own. But it was true—the moment Balthazar's hand found Dave's burgeoning hardness, his touches became concentrated there, and the pleasure he created in that physical flirting was enough to short circuit the younger man's brain.

The noises began then: whimpers and moan, pleads for mercy or release. Dave had been so proud never to have begged through the pain, but this pleasure was too crippling to be endured for a long stretch of time. Everywhere, he was being stroked, and now his erection—the one thing he wished he could have denied at the moment—was being lavished with attention. It was simply too much. There had to be a release, he had to climax or his body would twist itself into knots—the pleasure would soon become more painful than the torture had been.

"What am I?" the older man asked suddenly, quietly, his breath ghosting over Dave's neck.

"Balthazar!" Dave snapped, his anger undermined by the whimper that was lacing his voice.

Balthazar made a disapproving noise and shook his head. "Not good enough."

"Balthazar, please!" Dave begged. He wasn't proud of that, but he was fast reaching a breaking point.

"Not until you tell me what I want to hear," the sorcerer replied seriously. "What am I?"

Dave's thoughts hit an abrupt wall. He knew what the Balthazar wanted to hear—he knew exactly what word would earn him release. But was it worth it? Or perhaps the better question was: could he survive much longer if he _didn't_ say it? The pleasure and desire pumping through his veins was so severe and all encompassing that it wouldn't be possible to take much more without climaxing, but he had a feeling that Balthazar had no intention of allowing him that luxury without acknowledgement. He was damned either way, so did it really matter what he chose?

Dave breathed deep, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. "Master," he hissed quietly.

"Very good," Balthazar rumbled, his touches becoming firmer in reward. Then, perhaps just to be difficult, commanded, "Again, Dave."

"Master!" he shouted this time, his body already tightening in release. The moment seemed to stretch out as he achieved the most intense and humiliating orgasm of his life, and when it was over his body still spasmed in wicked echoes of pleasure. But the humiliation was not done—it was as he hung there, spent and dazed, that the absolute worst came.

Someone spoke up from the corner of the room. "Am I interrupting something?" the voice was male, cheerful and accented, but there was an underlying darkness in the tone.

Balthazar moved away from Dave, positioning himself between the captured man and this new stranger. "As a matter of fact, yes," he replied, his voice rough. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Dave was fighting down a blush, jittery nerves, and what was possibly the beginning of a monumental complex, but he still chanced a look at the intruder. The man was about Dave's age, perhaps a few years older, lithe, and tall, made even more so by the heeled boots he was wearing. His clothes were hard to describe, but they were tight, dark, and flashy—not simply stylish, but eye-catching by their edgy and inventive design. On anyone else they would have looked ridiculous, but considering the man also had painted nails, frosted hair and heavy eyeliner around his already dark eyes, the outfit simply looked natural.

"Hey now," the stranger laughed lightly, "there's no need to get defensive; it's none of my business what you like to do in your free time, or who you do it with. Although, if you ask me," he gave Dave a curious once over, "you could probably find someone a little more willing." The stranger paused, then shrugged. "Unless you're into that sort of thing."

Balthazar gave a low growl at that, although why he should take offense at something that Dave thought was essentially true would remain a mystery. Still, the older man _did_ seem offended by the implication, and he was quick to rush the stranger out of the room. How they left would _also_ remain a mystery, because Dave was much too tired and sore to turn and watch them when they exited his line of sight. For the first time since he'd awakened, he was left alone with his thoughts.

He almost wished the two men would come back.

* * *

Balthazar felt sick— and not just a passing discomfort and a twinge of regret. Nausea was rolling around in his belly as though he were standing on a ship caught in a fierce storm. He'd broken so many of his own codes in the last hours that he wasn't sure what to think of himself anymore. At his basest, he'd always considered himself a fair and honorable man, if somewhat eccentric and unorthodox; his mission had never sat well with him because he knew, from the very outset, that it was unfair. But who was he to defy destiny? Still, what he'd done in that room today, what he had put Dave through was possibly the single most horrifying thing he'd done in his unnaturally long life.

He had almost lost himself while watching Dave's pain, had almost broken before the younger man did. Balthazar had seen many peculiar methods of persuasion in his time, but he had never gotten used to, or found a fondness for pain. Dave had made little noise, but his suffering was clear in every tense line of his body—what he had experienced must have been agonizing, and yet he hadn't cried out until the sound had been forced from his lips. In the same moment as he'd been admiring the younger man's courage, Balthazar had been hating himself, and maybe hating Dave's disposition a little too. Why did it have to happen like this? Pain and torture was no foundation to build a Master and apprentice relationship on—they could only be twisted after this, with Balthazar using progressively more forceful methods of persuasion while Dave's resistance dwindled but his hatred grew.

He'd seen the hatred in Dave's eyes, and it had hurt Balthazar so completely that pleasure had been the only logical avenue left for him. It had been the best apology he could offer while still trying to gain acknowledgement. But that had backfired too—not in the end result, because he _had_ gotten what he'd wanted, but he hadn't meant to participate. At the first, he'd intended to let the magic take its course, but seeing Dave there, flush now with something that wasn't pain, Balthazar had been unable to resist. He'd had so little contact through the centuries, so little to hang onto that was good; for too many years he had existed solely to find the Prime Merlinian, and now that he had he was starting to regard the boy like a treasure. It was perverse, but the physical assurance that Dave was there, that he could be just as affected by Balthazar's presence as Balthazar was by his, had been like a balm to the older man's soul. He'd needed that feeling, had needed to know that in some way they were connected.

He would never forget the sounds Dave had made, or the way he had twisted and bucked in desire, but he would also never forget that it hadn't been Dave's choice; the whole experience had been forced on the boy in a desperate act of trickery.

Balthazar's thoughts turned to Veronica—he didn't let himself dwell on her often, but she was never far from his thoughts, always waiting, just one vulnerability away, to strike at his heart. And strike she did. Veronica would have been appalled at his behavior, at what he had done to the boy he was meant to give guidance to and at what he was still willing to further do; she would have called him a beast and immediately gone to sooth Dave. But Veronica wasn't there, and that was a good deal of the problem: Balthazar had always lost perspective without her. But he knew, this time, he had well and truly betrayed her—he'd done things that Merlin himself would have condemned as barbaric, and he had found an addictive pleasure in the feel of Dave. For so long he had missed Veronica, but with each slow year his hope of ever seeing her again had died a little; by the time she came out of the Grimhold now, it would be Veronica only in body. Morgana had infected her mind for too long to expect anything more.

Was it wrong to move on? He'd loved her for ages, and he would always love her in some ways, but she was, in most practical senses, dead. The Veronica he had known and cherished would never return; he'd remember her always, but he couldn't spend the rest of his life chasing a dream—he'd done that for too long already. Now he had Dave, who was, rightfully, untrusting of him, but at least _present_. He had to be open to the boy in all senses possible—Dave was his whole world now—and perhaps nothing spectacular would come of that relationship other than what was expected when one trained the Prime Merlinian, but he had to make sure that anything was possible and he couldn't do that with Veronica's specter hanging over him. He would have to bury her, once and for all.

But he knew, in his heart, that it would never be that simple.

"Hello?" A gloved hand waved in front of his face, snapping Balthazar from his thoughts. He'd forgotten about this new danger, the young stranger who felt like desperation. Balthazar had no time for this distraction though—the longer Dave was left alone with his thoughts, the more time he would have to rebuild his resistance—so this intruder would have to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

* * *

A/N: This chapter was heavier in both content and emotion than I was really intending to go right now, but I think we've been heading to this scene for a while anyway, so here you are. In my opinion, there were a lot of sensitive subjects in this chapter, so I'm apologizing straight up to anyone who was uncomfortable or offended.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sorcerer's Apprentice, Disney does.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Dave's mind drifted for a long time, simply slipping in and out of reality, avoiding thoughts of what had just happened. Where had things gone wrong, he wondered suddenly. He'd been a fairly normal boy all throughout childhood, an exceptional student his whole life, a decent friend to those who got to know him—most people agreed that he was citizen of the flipping year, his penchant for playing with electrical discharge aside. So how had he ended up tangled with a madman like Balthazar? It made no sense—hadn't he always been told that if he was good then good things would happen to him, if he stayed out of trouble then trouble would never come knocking at his door? What a lie! He'd never done anything—aside from possibly, and quite accidentally, imprisoning a man in an urn for ten years—and yet here he was, strung up like a serial-killer's feast, ready to be tortured some more. And, as far as he could tell from what Balthazar had said, the only thing he'd ever done to deserve any of this was that he'd been born. This Prime Merlinian business was going to be the death of him.

And yet, some part of him had to wonder if would just be easier to give in, to accept Balthazar's training with an open mind so that they could both move past all this foolishness. They would have to get back to their own lives eventually, and Dave would prefer it to be sooner rather than later. But he couldn't ignore the fact that he'd just been tortured and humiliated—those were definite faults against the older man and not to be taken lightly. The big question was, though: had the damage already been done? In a paralytic fit of pleasure, he'd given the older man the recognition that he'd been seeking; he had called Balthazar his master. Was that binding? Could he shrug the declaration off and continue to be stubborn, or was there some sort of magic that would affect him now that he'd technically submitted to the sorcerer?

Magic—what a bizarre thought. It was enough to make the scientist in him shake its head and groan, but he couldn't ignore that Balthazar had done things beyond conventional explanation. So far, Dave had taken everything in stride by not really thinking about the technicalities too much; he would agree up and down that the Morganians were probably a bad lot and that Balthazar was fighting for all the right reasons, so long as he didn't have to believe in magic. There had to be other ways to explain it—some arcane science that had been lost through the ages, perhaps. Magic just sounded too unbelievable, too silly—too much like his childhood dreams. He'd told Balthazar once that as a child he'd dreamt of becoming like Tesla; what he hadn't told the older man was that he'd dreamt of harnessing Tesla's work in such a way that it would be like a superpower: the ability to control lighting with his body, with his mere thoughts. He still dreamt of it, still worked for it in his own quiet way—and now there was Balthazar, lurking around every corner, telling him it and so much more was possible if Dave would just give in.

Yet his former pain weighed heavily on his mind. Balthazar had made it clear that he didn't enjoy inflicting pain on Dave, but he'd still _done_ it. Whether he'd liked it or not, Balthazar's actions did little to inspire trust. What would his "master" consider resistance after this point, and how long would it take before he started using force to get his way in all things? That wasn't a comfortable thought, and it wasn't a question that Dave thought he could constantly live with. Even if he'd suddenly seen the light and decided to fight in the war against Morgana, he'd still be hard-pressed to trust Balthazar after the last few hours.

Suddenly, and despite the fact that there was no door for the sound to drift through, Dave heard raised voices.

* * *

"That's not a story that needs telling," Balthazar snarled at the man who had introduced himself as Drake Stone. He'd never heard of the man before, despite Stone's apparently famous status, but Balthazar had been on a ten-year hiatus from the world at large, so it wasn't terribly surprising. Still, he knew enough of the local sorcery community to know who'd had apprentices before he'd been trapped, and Drake Stone hadn't been among any of them. That meant one of three things: first, Stone had been taken on a little late, which was unusual but not unheard of; second, he was simply a talented stage-magician, as he claimed, who had just managed to stumble into the world of the extraordinary; or third, the flamboyant man in front of him was a Morganian. In all honesty, it wasn't hard to come to conclusion—Stone had to possess some magical capability and training to have been able to get so far into the _Arcana Cabana_—and while the lines between Merlinian and Morganian were often blurry, this one reeked of Morganian corruption.

"Why are you the only one that gets to know?" Drake asked, bright smile slipping. "It's everyone's history, it should be common knowledge."

"Because," Balthazar replied pointedly, "some history can still hurt. The only thing you need to know is that Morgana is gone; how it happened is irrelevant."

The younger man seemed to pause and consider the words. "Yeah," he agreed, his wide smile returning, "but just between you and me…?"

"Just between the two of us," Balthazar sighed, losing his patience, "I think you're a Morganian asking too many questions."

Drake seemed unaffected by the accusation. He began to hum under his breath, swaying from side to side as he pursed his lips, apparently considering once more. His dark eyes darted from Balthazar to the hidden room they'd just exited, and his lips slowly quirked into a smirk. "Your apprentice doesn't seem very willing to learn," he said suddenly. "I wonder what would happen if he got loose?"

"How I train that boy is none of your concern," Balthazar had reached the end of his tether—he refused to be bullied by a man less than a tenth of his age. With a quick gesture, he gathered a plasma-ball into his hand. "You won't use him as leverage against me."

"I think I've overstayed my welcome," Drake commented easily. He held his hand up to his lips and blew, as though clearing something off his palm. A darkness shot from his hand, spreading quickly through the air until the small parlor room was shrouded in shadows. "There are other ways to get information, Blake—this is just a delay, not a defeat," his voice whispered from the darkness. "And if worst comes to worst, well," he laughed, "you called the boy leverage first, not me."

Light abruptly filled the room once more, but the Morganian was gone, leaving his wicked words to echo around Balthazar's thoughts. His first instinct was to run—to grab the Grimhold and Dave, and simply set off for parts unknown. Drake Stone didn't look like much of a threat, but Balthazar hadn't survived the last millennia by playing the odds when it came to simple appearances. The safest way to move was to compel the _Arcana Cabana_ to go traveling—they could cycle through all the major cities of the world in a matter of weeks while they trained—but it would take time to perform the necessary magic, and that would leave Dave in danger. It was a safe bet that Stone hadn't known Dave was the Prime Merlinian, so Drake wouldn't be looking for blood just yet, but exposure to a Morganian could be disastrous right now—even if Stone never guessed the truth of Balthazar's apprentice, the Morganian's corruptive influence could warp Dave's training just enough to put the future of the world in danger. And if Drake really did find a way to release Dave, it would put Balthazar back at square one: able to find the boy, but unable to protect him and unable to convince him to accept what destiny had planned. Square two might not have looked particularly different, but at least they were making _some_ progress.

But he couldn't trust Dave to travel the old-fashioned way—either someone would be looking for him, or the boy would run off at the first moment possible. Besides, traveling by conventional means was easily traceable, and it would limit the amount of supplies Balthazar had on hand for training exercises, not to mention maximize their exposure to danger. At least with the _Arcana Cabana_ they would constantly be on the move, and he could always draw up some extra security within its walls, if it was immediately necessary.

Could nothing go right where Dave was concerned? Ever since he'd met the boy, Balthazar had experienced an endless litany of trouble. He was beginning to wonder if all this effort was worth it. But he didn't have a choice and, even if he had, he still would have wanted to train Dave—there was something oddly magnetic about the younger man.

With a weary sigh, Balthazar moved back into the hidden room; the door was a tricky little ingenuity that he'd dreamt up several centuries ago. Like everything else in the _Arcana Cabana_ it existed in a dimension apart, but it was a part of the building proper, unlike some rooms that were only occasionally attached to the building. The door itself was always there, although it had a tendency to move and blend in with its surroundings; the trick of it, though, was that only a sorcerer could unlock it—the door had no _visible_ keyholes or knobs, everything had been internalized.

His first sight of the room was nothing new—he'd been using it as a workroom to train himself for ages and it had become cluttered with books and half-finished gizmos. His first sight of Dave, however, nearly broke his heart. But he'd _had_ to tie the boy up, he reminded himself; even untrained, the Prime Merlinian was stronger than Balthazar could ever hope to be. Still, the sight of the obstinate youth hung from the ceiling by his wrists… It was easy to see the tension in Dave's body, easy to see that his shoulders were weary from supporting his weight, and it didn't take any sort of genius to notice that the fight was slowly draining out of the boy. Balthazar was torn on that last observation; he didn't want to break Dave's spirit, but it was imperative that the younger man follow him. He'd never had to be so forcefully coercive in his life, and he found that he was ill suited to it—he didn't want to break and remold Dave, he simply wanted to nurture what was already there, and yet he found every avenue blocked by Dave's resistance. What was he supposed to do?

Pleasure had gotten Balthazar the acknowledgment he needed to begin the boy's training, but would it continue to be a necessary tool?

* * *

Dave wasn't sure how he knew the older man had returned—he heard nothing, not the scrape of a door or the swish of a curtain—but every nerve in his body seemed to wake up all at once and he knew, _knew_ that Balthazar was standing behind him once more. It was unsettling, to say the least.

An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them; after all, what was there to say? "What happens now?" the words burst from him unexpectedly; the silence had become too deafening, and his natural nervousness had compelled him.

Balthazar didn't speak for a long time, long enough that Dave began to wonder if the older man had heard him, but then he sighed and began moving about the room. "If I knew the answer to that, we wouldn't be in nearly as much trouble as we are," he commented, shuffling through some books he'd picked up off the floor. "At best, your training begins."

"At worst?" Dave asked through a tight throat.

Balthazar stopped thumbing through a dense tomb, turning to look at his immobile companion. "At worst, we spend the next several weeks, possibly years, exactly how we spent this afternoon. I'm not comfortable with the amount of force you're making me exert, Dave, but I _will_ continue if you make it necessary." He turned back to his book. "Of course, it won't make much of a difference if, at the absolute worst, we get lost between dimensions."

Dave struggled to face the older man, who was now standing off to his left a ways. "What are you talking about?"

"Remember how I told you that the _Arcana Cabana_ can travel, and exist anywhere it wants? Well, usually it cycles between locations about once every few weeks or so, but I want to speed up the process—put it on a fast shuffle, if you will," the older man replied, his fingers running over the texts before him.

"Why?" Dave floundered for a moment. He'd already acknowledged that he'd been kidnapped, more or less, but knowing that he was still in the city had given him some hope of getting home eventually. If Balthazar took that hope away, Dave wasn't sure what would happen to his state of mind. Was this another ploy to break him, or did this have something to do with the stranger who hadn't come back?

"My reasons are my own, David," Balthazar replied without looking up. After a moment, he snapped his fingers and the ropes tied to the younger man sprung immediately away.

Dave fell to the floor with a groan that was both pained and relieved. The fires had long since gone out, but the floor was still warm and it did wonders for his protesting muscles. Blood was suddenly surging back into his arms and hands, which was uncomfortable but appreciated. His shoulders were so tight and abused, though, that he knew they would hurt for days to come. Absently, he rubbed at his wrists—the red marks there were fading fast, unnaturally fast—and tried to combat the annoying pins-and-needles feeling he was getting.

Balthazar switched books, quickly writing down notes in an ancient, flowing script. "You're a physicist, so this should be easy for you," he said out of nowhere. "Tell me the basic principle of reality."

Dave staggered to his feet—the only part of him that wasn't in some state of aching or revival—and began to wander the room, surreptitiously looking for an exit. "Reality?" he echoed. "That's a broad subject; I'm not sure what you're really asking for."

Balthazar was not fooled by the careful sneaking and, with a wiggle of his fingers, he had the younger man sliding toward him by an invisible force. "The basic, over-arching principle of reality is that it is based entirely on our perception. Take this interaction right here, for example," the older man replied evenly. "You saw absolutely nothing, yet you felt some force push you forward. Why was that?"

Dave shook his head, at a loss for words. Was there nothing the sorcerer couldn't do?

"Well, why does anything, at its very basest level, happen?" Balthazar pushed, finally looking up from his stack of books.

"Molecular interaction," Dave supplied with a stutter. He found it unnerving to have the full focus of those piercing blue eyes on him.

Balthazar smiled, the laugh-lines around his eyes standing out while his blue gaze lit with simple pleasure. "Exactly," he replied, his tone praising. "You moved forward because I _perceived_ that I could disrupt the molecules behind you."

Dave's brow furrowed. "How?" he asked, forgetting his nervousness.

"Do you still have the ring I gave you?" Balthazar countered, waiting while the younger man fished it out of one of his many pockets. "There's one thing that sets sorcerers apart from everyone else," he continued. "It's the innate ability to tap into regions of the brain that most people never use. A sorcerer will spend their life working at full cerebral capacity, while the vast majority of normal people can only hope to use around ten percent of its full power."

Dave absorbed the information with a frown. "What does the ring have to do with any of this?"

"The ring is what lets us turn thought into action." Balthazar held up his hand; most of his fingers were cluttered with rings, but only one caught the eye. It was large and simple, with a strangely cut emerald that flashed in the light given off by the twin fireplaces. "This is what gives us power. It taps into your nervous system and interprets the electrical impulses going to and from your brain, allowing you to affect the perceived reality. Without a ring you still have full use of your brain, you're still a genius, but _only_ a genius."

Dave slipped his own ring on, out of curiosity, but he felt no different with the little dragon around his finger. "So it's science, not magic?"

"There are some things that even a sorcerer cannot explain—it's simply possible and we don't know how it works," Balthazar shrugged. "But that doesn't mean there _is_ no explanation. It could be science, it could be magic."

He knew he was about to tread in dangerous territory, but the inquisitive part of him was simply burning. "How does it work?" Dave asked, a certain dread lacing his heart—he was falling into the older man's training, head first.

"Clear your mind," Balthazar said, closing his eyes and breathing deep, as though he were doing one of Becky's yoga exercises. "Focus on what it is you want to do," his eyes reopened and zeroed in on his stack of books. "And change reality," gently, the book at the top of the pile rose into the air.

Dave watched the interaction, completely baffled. Theoretically, he knew what was happening, but to see it with his own eyes was shocking. "How?" he asked again.

"Focus on the molecules under the book and vibrate them enough to force them into a semi-solid state," Balthazar instructed. "From there, it's just a matter of pushing them in whatever direction you want the book to go." He caught the book from the air and, flipping it open, turned back to his notes. "Try it."

Dave was itching to give it a go, but something was weighing on his mind. "That's it," he asked, "we're just going to begin training?" There were still so many problems between them, so many things that needed to be resolved.

"You acknowledged me as your Master, so it's the next logical step," Balthazar replied, gathering his notes together. "I could go on a power trip later, if it would make you feel better."

"Not really, no," Dave shook his head.

Balthazar shrugged. "Then training it is." He walked to the far side of the room, stopping in front a nondescript section of wall. "Try levitating the books without setting them on fire—molecular disruption can be tricky in that way," he encouraged. "In the mean time, I have something that really must be seen to." And with that, a section of the wall jumped outward—a door where one should not have been—Balthazar had left the room once more.

* * *

A/N: The end of this chapter was a lot of re-cap from the movie, but that was sort of inevitable, given that this is a story about Dave's training. Even so, I apologize if anyone found this boring or repetitious.

As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, Fall Semester has started. My schedule has worked out a little strangely, but I tend to had some time in the mornings to write, so I'll try to do a chapter a week. Of course, I've made that promise before and fallen hideously behind, so we'll see how it really works out.

And, on a sadder note, a very dear friend of mine just passed away: my MacBook. It stuck with me through thick and thin—always by my side for the better part of five years. This was the computer, ladies and gentleman who are familiar with my work, that brought you the latter half of Dramatic Orchestrations, the entirety of Bodice Ripper, and many other tales of which I am fond. It will be sorely missed, and its replacement shall have a lot to live up to.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Sorcerer's Apprentice belongs to Disney.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Okay, so going _straight_ to Balthazar Blake and blandly asking what had happened to Morgana probably hadn't been the best plan, now that he thought about it. But Drake wasn't really the planning sort, so there were bound to be a couple of hiccups along the way. The important thing was that he always had a clear sense of what to do next—and, boy, did he ever! He'd heard a lot about Merlinians, Merlin's apprentices in particular, so he had never expected to walk into a scene straight out of a BDSM porno; admittedly, he'd missed all the action, but it had been all too clear what they'd been up to. Either the two of them liked to _play_, or that nervous boy was the most reluctant apprentice _ever_. That last possibility gave Drake exactly what he needed: leverage. He could use Balthazar's apprentice as a hostage no matter what the circumstances were, but if the boy _was_ actively trying to escape his Master then it would be only too easy to make any ally out of him.

The problem was going to be getting to the boy; even if Balthazar decided to play off the conversation he'd had with Drake, he would undoubtedly make sure his apprentice was as protected as possible. There'd been something dark and a little dangerous in Blake's eyes, and it hadn't just been the natural antagonism between Merlinians and Morganians—it had been possession. Balthazar would not let go of his apprentice lightly or, most likely, at all. Drake really had to pause and think about that; not the fact that getting to the boy would be hard but the strange dynamic he'd glimpsed between the two Merlinians. The boy hadn't been pleased, other than in the physical sense, so it was a fair bet that he wasn't there willingly—which went against everything Drake thought he knew about Merlinians. For Balthazar's part, there'd been a darkness weighing on him, an edge of insanity that didn't suit the older man—or perhaps suited him too well. Blake had seemed blinded by some intense desperation when it came to the boy, which was unusual, to say the least; why was he so fixated on one unwilling apprentice? There were plenty of other people to train.

No matter how Drake pondered that question, it always came back to the fact that the boy had to be special in some way. If it were a purely sexual thing, Balthazar would never have called the boy his apprentice, so what was it? The only thing that came to mind was laughable: the boy was the Prime Merlinian, which was impossible. And yet… He had never heard of Balthazar taking an apprentice, and for as long as Blake had lived that was highly unusual. And why else would someone as notably honorable as Balthazar be _forcing_ one specific boy into training? It all made a strange kind of sense—but so did the thought that after a little over a thousand years old, Blake had simply lost all sense of who he was supposed to be. No one was meant to live that long—even in the Morganian world his age was considered unnatural—and, with a few notable exceptions, no one dared to do it. And it wasn't because it was simply unachievable, it was because sorcerers who did tended to go stark raving mad.

Drake shook off his thoughts with a snort—he wasn't really the introspective type. Why get mired in details when it was the big picture, the over all look of the thing, that mattered most? He had a gig tonight, but after that he would have to look into ways of reaching Balthazar's apprentice; with any luck, the boy would be easily charmed, or maybe just that desperate.

* * *

Dave walked around the room, pulling furniture away from the walls, tapping at the wooden panels, and running his fingers along the floor. No matter where he looked, he could not find an exit. He'd immediately gone to where he had seen the door earlier, but it was just a section of blank wall, completely undistinguishable from any other panel; there was no knob, no secret switch, not even a little crevasse that he could dig his fingers into. For all intents and purposes, the room was perfectly sealed off from the outside world, aside from the fireplaces, but Dave quickly decided that he wasn't quite brave enough to go climbing up the chimneys.

_How had Balthazar done it?_ Something clicked for Dave as he pondered that question: if he viewed Balthazar's magic like the science he thought it was, then his question had already been answered. "Molecular interaction," he murmured to himself—that's how the older man had done it. Balthazar knew where the door was, so he'd either forced it open in the same manner he'd dragged Dave across the room, or he'd tripped some invisible locking mechanism. And if Balthazar could do it then so could Dave.

He threw out his hand so that the dragon-ring was facing the blank section of wall, and promptly ran into several problems, not the least of which was that he had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know what the lock might look like, or if it was even a lock at all, so he couldn't know what to trip or trigger and, more importantly, he didn't even know if he had the capability. Balthazar had made moving things look easy, but now that Dave really focused on the task he felt like it was next to impossible—there were too many unknown and foreign factors.

He narrowed his eyes and turned back to the stack of books he'd been left with. They were visual tools, something he could see and understand, something that would be easier to affect because he didn't need to guess what was happening to them. He had no vested interests in the books themselves, but they could be teachers, blocks to build a road out of—if he practiced levitating and moving books around enough to master the skill, then the only thing stopping him from using the same trick on the door would be Balthazar himself.

* * *

Balthazar pulled the Incantus out of the basement wall, his heart a little heavy at the sight of it. Under normal circumstances, he would have given Dave the massive book at the same time he'd given him the ring, but he knew he couldn't risk it right now. He was too uncertain where Dave was concerned, and while teaching the boy would be a little harder without the Incantus, Balthazar knew he couldn't trust the Dave to have it. It was just another reminder of how twisted their relationship had turned out to be—he couldn't even give the boy something that rightfully belonged to him.

With a shake of his head, Balthazar resealed the basement wall, opened the Incantus and ascended the stairs. He'd found most of what he needed in the previous books he'd checked, but the Incantus would tell him how to use the information he'd gathered. The problem came down to the fact that he'd never expected a situation like this to arise, so when he'd cast the initial spell on his beloved _Arcana Cabana_ he hadn't left any room for future alterations—there'd been no need at the time. But now there was a need, and he found that to do what he wanted, he was going to have to tear down the original spell and replace it with an entirely new one. It would be dangerous, though; he'd spent months researching that first spell to make sure nothing could go wrong, but he'd only spent minutes putting this one together, so there was the very real possibility that the building could end up stuck in its own dimension. Hopefully, if the very worst happened, the damage would be reversible.

Balthazar grabbed the curtain and rod from behind the service counter and threw them against the back wall, once more opening the portal to his garden. He'd created the place eons ago—an exact replica of the courtyard where Merlin had taught him the basics of sorcerer. It was a calm place and he often went there to clear his mind or cast some of his more important spells—like this one.

With a raise of his free arm, the Merlinian circles in the ancient cobbles began to burn, and he entered them quickly, unafraid of the unnatural fires. Once he reached the center, Balthazar flipped open the book and began the incantation. A sweat immediately broke out across his brow as he felt the power swell in and out of him, rapidly building and depleting as the spell worked its magic. The problem was that much of the _Arcana Cabana_ was held together by magic alone—like the courtyard, many of the rooms and places were not physically attached to the building—so undoing even a little bit of the magic surrounding his home was both dangerous and complicated. It would take hours just to get the eccentric place ready for the spell that he _really_ wanted to do.

* * *

Dave tried and failed for what felt like hours. At hour one, the books didn't even topple over, much less float; at hour two, they wiggled a little, and one briefly shot into the air to thump heavily against the ceiling; at hour three, he could wobble two or three of the tomes off the stack—and so on, until hour five when he accidentally set a book on fire, and then what was possibly hour seven when he had some kind of epiphany.

From one second to the next, the Universe suddenly made sense: it was all connected, and he was connected to it. Where once the dragon-ring had made him feel no different, it now flooded him with new sensations. He could feel the book, could feel the semi-solid air mass just below it, just as he could feel any other object he turned his attention to. It was startling and new—he could feel the solidness of the furniture, could feel the energy thrown off by the merrily burning twin fireplaces, he could even feel something of the world beyond the large room, like the pervasive sense of spatial distortion that surrounded the _Arcana Cabana_. He had never felt this in tune, this connected to anything other than his work with the Tesla coils; to say it was overwhelming would be an understatement.

And, just like that, in the midst of hour seven, Dave mastered levitation. It wasn't perfect, like a child his motor skills were a little shaky, but when he focused on a book, or a piece of furniture when he got more enterprising, it sprang to answer his call.

He gazed around in satisfaction when he caught sight of the slightly singed tome that he'd accidentally managed to set ablaze, and it sent his mind whirling with possibilities. Dave knew exactly why it had happened—which is why it had only happened once—he'd put too much energy into the molecules he'd been attempting to move, and they had caused enough friction to set the book on fire. It had been an accident at the time, but now that he thought about it, it was something new to learn. Principally, it wasn't that different from levitation, the only difference was that he didn't need any object to focus on—he could create fire out of the very air if he so chose.

And choose, he did. Like always, once Dave got caught up in his work, he became oblivious to all other things. His desperate need to escape was completely pushed aside as he attempted to create fireballs. In fact, when he did finally open the door, it was not with the intention to go home, but rather to find Balthazar. It was unfortunate because, though he didn't know it, his window of opportunity was rapidly shrinking.

Dave looked around uncertainly; the _Arcana Cabana_ was big and cluttered, and he had no idea where the older man might be, but he needed to talk to him. The problem was that fire wasn't coming nearly as easily as levitation had; he could set things on fire, to be sure, but he couldn't control it and he couldn't draw it out of the air like he knew was possible. The skill was just out of his reach, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. He needed help.

* * *

Balthazar tiredly exited the courtyard, taking the curtain down as he went, and gratefully slumped in the chair behind the service counter. The spell hadn't taken longer than he'd expected, but it had taken a lot more energy; the threads of the initial enchantment had become horrifically tangled over the years, and picking them apart had been tiresome. Still, he'd done it, and the new incantation was slowly taking affect; by the end of the hour, the store would start cycling through a new location every day.

It was just as Balthazar was putting up his aching feet—he'd had to stand for the duration of the casting, which had taken _hours_—that he was immediately accosted by Dave. To say he was surprised to see the younger man outside of the workroom was an understatement, and he quickly shot to his abused feet in alarm.

But Dave surprised him once more. "I need you to show me something," he demanded, a frustrated gleam in his dark eyes.

"As long as it's not the exit," Balthazar shrugged.

"No," Dave waved the thought away impatiently. "It's," he paused, as though at a loss for words, then gave an irritated sigh. "Let me show you," he said instead, and immediately began to head back to the workroom.

Intrigued, the older man followed him, and nearly laughed when he caught sight of their destination. The room had certainly seen better days, Balthazar thought with a growing grin—there were books and scorch-marks everywhere, and he couldn't quite decide if Dave had just had _that much_ trouble with levitation or if he'd decided to move on to fire without any instruction. It was astounding, in any case; Balthazar had assumed that moving the heavy tomes around would keep Dave occupied for days, seeing as most apprentices could do very little outside of Merlin's circle until they had become somewhat proficient with the skill. It was just another testament to the strength of the Prime Merlinian, he supposed.

"What exactly happened?" he finally asked, oddly noting that while much of the room sported burns and scorches, only one book had sustained any damage.

"Look, I got the levitation down," the boy said impatiently. His had shot out, ring first, and at once a stack of books and several chairs rose smoothly into the air—they wobbled a bit once he tried to hold them there, but the progress was still amazing. "But during that," Dave continued, setting the items down, "I set one of the books on fire, and I thought—"

"That it would be easy to master?" Balthazar interrupted. "That it was similar enough to make the jump on your own?"

Dave nodded. "It is—sort of. See, I can set things on fire," a section of the floor lit ablaze and was just as quickly extinguished, "but that's not what I want to do." He held one of his hands up, and the air in front of him began to smoke, then there was a brief flash—but no fire.

Most people would have been satisfied with breaching the known limitations of humanity, but not Dave—he wanted more; he'd seen something new, something unique, and he wanted to harness it. Was that the nature of the Prime Merlinian, or just Dave? And if that thirst was in his nature, then had they already cleared the highest hurtle? It would be nice to think that now that the training had begun, there would be no more problems between them; it wasn't likely, but it was good to dream.

* * *

Balthazar studied him for a protracted moment, long enough that Dave became a little nervous once more. "Hold out your hand like this," the older man finally said, holding out his hand so that his palm was cupped with his fingers curled toward the ceiling. "Fire is a two-fold art," he went on to explain. "Like you've discovered, setting things on fire is fairly easy, but creating a fireball is a different discipline entirely.

Dave held out his hand as instructed. "What am I doing wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Balthazar looked surprised. "You aren't doing anything _wrong_—you're just missing a step." He edged a little closer to the younger man. "You've been vibrating the molecules right above your hand—which is what you're supposed to do. They smoke, they flash, but you don't get any fire."

"Right," Dave nodded, trying once more only to get the same result.

"The flames are being dowsed," Balthazar explained. "Your molecules are vibrating and heating, and the molecules next to them are stealing that heat. By the time you've built up any momentum, the room at large it working to stabilize all that excess energy." He demonstrated, but nothing new happened.

"Great," Dave groaned, "I'm a human radiator."

Balthazar chuckled. "What you need to do is buffet the molecules surrounding your intended fire—create a little vortex around it, if you will." In the center of his palm, a tiny flame leapt to life. "You see, this type of fire has no fuel, nothing to keep it burning other than you and the air around it, so it's up to you to control it completely. By creating the vortex you can control its size," the flame in his palm grew to the size of a grapefruit. "You can control its intensity," the flames bled from orange to blue, and began to throw off a noticeable amount of heat. "And you can control where it goes," now the flame hovered in the air, above their heads, and flew straight into the closest fireplace to be consumed amongst the other flames.

Dave thought for a moment—it all made perfect sense in terms of energy transference, but there was one thing that was bothering him. "What do you mean by vortex?"

"Just vibrate the molecules around the fire, like you did to levitate the books," the older man shrugged. "Those molecules will create a field, a moving boundary for your fire. But you have to be careful that you don't create a vacuum, because the fireball will gutter out if it can't get any air, just like a real fire."

It sounded so much easier than he knew it was. After all, how long had it taken him just to float a measly book? And at least with the book he'd been able to see what he was doing—now he just had to go on faith alone, and hope that he was really doing what he was supposed to be. Still, Balthazar had just done it, so he knew it had to be possible.

Dave took a deep breath and was just about to embark on the hours-long journey ahead of him, when something screeched across his nerves. He was suddenly gripped by what could only be described as a full body brain freeze— it was irritating and paralyzing and, unfortunately, familiar. The very same feeling had gripped him in Balthazar's presence before, what the older man had described as a hypersensitivity to "shifts in perceived reality". He hadn't been entirely sure what that had meant at first, but Dave was beginning to suspect that it meant he would be on edge whenever dimensions brushed against one another. All of which begged one very important question: _had_ the dimensions around them just moved?

"Dave?" Balthazar asked, a frown pulling at his lips.

Realization crashed upon him—he'd taken too long. Dave knew that Balthazar was working on transporting the _Arcana Cabana_ out of the city; the whole reason he'd started working on levitation had been so that he could escape the store before that happened. But he'd gotten caught up in the work and one thing had simply led to another and, before long, he'd become entranced. Curiosity had taken away his one opportunity to escape, unless… unless they hadn't actually moved yet.

Quickly, Dave rushed out of the room, but his dash was short lived, just like his hopes. The minute he found a window, he knew there was no chance to leave—he'd been right to suspect that there had been some sort of dimensional friction. The _Arcana Cabana_ had not only left New York, it had gone somewhere exotic and new… and underwater.

"It's Lake Champlain," Balthazar said from behind him, nonchalantly leaning in the doorway.

Dave suddenly felt like the weight of the world was crushing him. For one brief moment, he'd been sucked into the older man's lunacy, and he had enjoyed it in ways he'd never enjoyed anything, save working with his Tesla coils, so of course it wasn't meant to last. Like a slap in the face, he was now reminded that he'd been kidnapped, that he had little to no say in anything that was going on, and now he had absolutely no hope for escape. "Why?" he asked quietly.

"I could be prosaic and say that's it's as good a place to start as any, but I'll be honest," Balthazar murmured, coming closer. "You're in danger."

* * *

A/N: …I've got nothing; this chapter just _happened_.

Many, many thanks to those who have reviewed the last few chapters—I've noticed a dwindling response, and I can't decide if it's me or the fandom.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Sorcerer's Apprentice belongs to Disney.


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